Measured throughput and SNR of IEEE 802.11g in a small enterprise environment

Wireless local-area networks (WLANs) based on IEEE 802.11 a/b/g standards are growing rapidly. WLANs can provide the benefits of network connectivity without the restrictions of being tied to a location or restricted by wires. Despite the convenience of mobility, the performance of the WLAN must be addressed carefully before the WLAN can be adopted as part of an enterprise network. In this paper, the impact of various key parameters on the actual performance of IEEE 802.11g is verified by a serious of controlled experiments. Overall, three sets of independent experiments were conducted to measure IEEE 802.11g effective application level throughput and signal-to-noise ratio in three typical indoor scenarios. The analysis results and measurement campaign provide insights into the required provisioning for 802.11g WLAN to ensure that it provides the needed coverage and capacity for the intended users.