Dynamic Channel Bandwidth Use through Efficient Channel Assignment in IEEE 802.11ac Networks

IEEE 802.11ac enables channel bonding, where several channels form wide bandwidths up to 160 MHz in a very flexible manner, and can be used to increase the transmission rates. This Dynamic Channel Bonding (DCB) is highly dependent on the channel allocation, because of the pre- defined bonding patterns. In this paper we propose a channel allocation method that considers the constraints imposed by bonding, and therefore enables the use of wider bandwidths more often resulting also in higher throughput. A simulation study was performed for two typical scenarios: enterprise and residential. The results show significant gains of up to 38% wider bandwidth in use and 46% increase of median throughput for the proposed allocation scheme when compared with the baseline approach.