Experimenting with real time applications in an IEEE 802.11b ad hoc network

In this study we set up an ad-hoc testbed of heterogeneous devices and investigate the behavior of video and audio streaming over the TCP protocol. The metrics for measuring the quality of service (QoS) of the TCP flows, are TCP round trip time (RTT) and signal to noise ratio (SNR). Our findings indicate an inverse correlation between RTT and SNR, with the first value increasing exponentially after a lower SNR threshold. Device movement and large distances are two factors affecting RTT negatively. Finally we show that the impact of background traffic on these streaming applications is prominent, as it increases RTT significantly.