language: en

Measured Performance of a Wireless LAN

Dan Duchamp and Neil F. Reynolds
Computer Science Department Columbia University
500 W. 120th St. New York, NY 10027
{djd,nfr}@cs.columbia.edu

Abstract We have studied the performance of a high-speed commercial spread-spectrum wireless LAN that uses the CSMA/CA multiple-access strategy. Employing synthetic workloads, we measured packet capture success more so than signal propagation characteristics. Specifically, we measured throughput, packet loss rates, range, and patterns of errors within packets. We conclude that CSMA/CA is quite successful in allocating bandwidth under stress, but that packet capture rate degrades very quickly once the LAN's effective range is exceeded. Hence, network maintainers should plan the layout of wireless networks at least as carefully as they plan wired networks.

1 Introduction