Performance of IEEE 802.11b Wireless Links: An Experimental Study

This paper reports the experimental results of IEEE 802.11b wireless link performance in ad hoc mode. The throughput and packet loss rate are measured for user datagram protocol (UDP) and transmission control protocol (TCP) traffic in both indoor and outdoor environments. Various factors that affect the performance of the wireless link, such as the packet size, the transmission rate, the distance between stations, the retry limit and the network topology are considered. Experimental measurements are also compared against theoretical calculations.