Equilibrium analysis of coexisting IEEE 802.11e wireless LANs

A model for the coexistence problem of overlapping IEEE 802.11e wireless networks is discussed in this paper. In a competition scenario of overlapping 802.11e networks, quality of service cannot be guaranteed by the 802.11e protocol. For this reason, a stage-based game structure is introduced here. Wireless networks participate in the game as players. The players are gaining in each stage a so-called utility, which is a summarizing value for the achieved quality of service. The interaction of the players within a single stage is analyzed in detail, under consideration of Nash equilibria and Pareto efficiency.