The case for heterogeneous WLAN environments for converged networks

We demonstrate that in a future converged network scenario, it may be beneficial to allow selection of 802.11 variant based on application requirements. We analyse traces from the campus network from the University of Twente, comprising ~5000 users. We have evaluated a performance envelope derived from testbed experiments for individual IEEE 802.11 variants and compare these with the traffic patterns from the campus network. From our comparison, we find that specific IEEE 802.11 variants (e.g. 802.11g or 802.11n) may be better suited to specific applications, such as video streaming, rather than using a single WLAN standard for all traffic.