Evaluating the Impact of Transmission Power on QoS in Wireless Mesh Networks

Wireless interference is a natural problem of single radio Wireless Mesh Networks (WMN) that operate on a shared medium. Noise induced by simultaneously sending nodes within the same transmission range leads to less throughput and a higher latency. These are critical for the overall quality of a network and regulate the level of achieved QoS. Reducing the transmission power implies less interference on the medium, but also less robust links. Therefore finding an optimal transmission power level may be one solution to increase the efficiency of single radio WMN. We analyze the impact of transmission power control (TPC) on wireless interference within a real testbed environment, and show that transmission power control leads to a better throughput and latency.