Analytical model for service differentiation schemes in IEEE 802.11 wireless LAN

This paper considers the problem of providing relative service differentiation in IEEE 802.11 Wireless LAN by using different Medium Access Control (MAC) parameters for different service classes. We present an analytical model which predicts the saturation throughput of IEEE 802.11 Distributed Coordination Function with multiple classes of service. This model allows us to show that relative service differentiation can be achieved by varying the initial contention window alone. In this case, the saturation throughput of a station can be shown to be approximately inversely proportional to the initial contention window size being used by that station. The simulation results validate our analytical model.