Delay Distribution of IEEE802.11 DCF: a Comparative Study under Saturated Conditions

Abstract

This work discusses the total transmission delay distribution in wireless networks where medium access follows the IEEE802.11 DCF medium access protocol. It does not propose a new model to derive the delay distribution of such protocol but focuses on providing a precise performance evaluation method to characterize the accuracy of analytical derivations of the literature. More specifically, this method separates the error introduced by the two main steps of the delay distribution characterization, naming the calculation of the delay probability generating function (PGF) and its numerical inversion. It is illustrated to assess the performance of the main Markov-based MAC model found in the literature together with two different types of queues (M/M/1 and M/G/1).