Multi-service traffic profiles to realise and maintain QoS guarantees in wireless LANs

This paper shows that throughput parameter "bits/s" does not provide accurate insight in load conditions and/or traffic demands in Wireless LANs (WLANs). A multi-service traffic profile that does provide this insight is therefore defined. The multi-service traffic profile is natural to define network resource demands for real-time applications. Simulation results are used to show how to set the traffic profile parameters for elastic traffic. The paper subsequently uses the multi-service profiles to define the notion of a QoS budget. The QoS budget is given to a terminal and the terminal can determine locally if network consumption does not exceed the budget and whether a new network greedy application fits within the QoS budget given. Finally, it is shown how the QoS budget with its multi-service traffic profiles can be used to guarantee quality of service in wireless LANs, in a situation where WLAN channel conditions may vary in time and WLAN stations may move around within a BSS. Simulation results found in literature are used to validate the accuracy of the novel algorithms proposed to guarantee QoS in wireless LANs. (C) 2009 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.