Theoretical and experimental analysis of the channel busy fraction in IEEE 802.11

Optimizing the operation of IEEE 802.11 networks requires to estimate the load of the wireless channel. The channel busy fraction, which is the fraction of time in which the wireless channel is sensed busy due to successful or unsuccessful transmissions, can be used as such indicator. It can be obtained from e.g. the IEEE 802.11k channel load report or hardware-specific interfaces. Previously, the channel busy fraction has been used as a metric for different purposes such as routing and admission control. However, a thorough evaluation of the relationship between the busy fraction and other important characteristics such as the collision probability and throughput is missing. In this paper, we present an analytical model to study the channel busy fraction in non-saturated IEEE 802.11 networks. We validate the model with measurements in a testbed. The predictions from the model match measurements well. Furthermore, we demonstrate how to apply the model to estimate the available link bandwidth. Using measurements obtained from a testbed operated at 6 Mbit/s, we show that the channel busy fraction allows an accurate prediction of the available bandwidth with an error smaller than 70 Kbit/s.