Managing End-to-End Delay for VoIP Calls in Multi-Hop Wireless Mesh Networks

In current wireless networks, channel access is controlled via either a TDMA- or a CSMA-based scheme. While usable in single-hop networks, these techniques are far from optimal and result in significant per-hop and per-packet delay an jitter. This makes multi-hop mesh networks unsuitable for several in-demand applications, including VoIP. We present a new medium access control (MAC) protocol for wireless mesh networks caring delay-sensitive isochronous data. In our scheme, nodes use simple local mechanisms to form adaptive transmission schedules which attain the desired quality of service. Simulations show that our scheme achieves near-optimal capacity, minimal jitter, and a weaker correlation between route length and end-to-end delay.