Accurate hidden markov modeling of packet losses in indoor 802.11 networks

This article presents an analysis of packet losses in IEEE 802.11 networks under indoor environment constraints, and shows how the Gilbert-Elliot model fails to represent packet losses in such networks. As an alternative, we propose a simple hidden Markov model (HMM) with a birth-death structure, which describes with sufficient accuracy the mean packet loss rate, variance, length of loss bursts, and process autocorrelation.