Toward dimensioning cooperative high-density wireless networks

The planning procedure of 802.11 WLAN networks is specific to each type of venue. In the case of large venues with high number and dense Wi-Fi devices, the network planning requires a deep investigation on: available channels, number of devices to associate, throughput per channels, etc. In addition, the WLAN planning of dense Wi-Fi devices becomes more complicated when adding collaboration between devices. The collaboration between devices is achieved by forwarding and sharing data through neighboring devices, named relays. In this paper, we provide guidelines for WLAN planning in high-dense collaborative environments. In addition, we study the network performance gains when content is distributed in cooperative manner through both unicast and multicast mode. Results show that using cooperative content distribution in dense environments leads to notable gain in network performance.