Evaluating the voice capacity of 802.11 WLAN under distributed control

Though initially designed for data transport, there is increasing interest in using the 802.11 WLAN protocol for voice and other real time services. This paper presents a performance model for voice over WLAN under distributed control. The model is based on classical decoupling arguments and allows an analytical evaluation of network capacity in terms of tuneable protocol parameters. We determine parameter settings that maximize the number of simultaneous conversations and demonstrate the significant impact on capacity of the voice packet size. Models are developed for both dedicated and integrated networks using the priority features of 802.11e