Packet error rate in IEEE 802.11ah use case scenarios

IEEE 802.11 standardization body has created and adopted its technical solution for dealing with M2M and IoT requirements, specified under “ah” amendment. 802.11ah represents the first sub-1GHz license-exempt wireless local area network (WLAN) standard. This flexible and scalable communication solution is applicable on wide range of possible use cases, grouped into the three general scenarios: sensors and smart meters, backhaul aggregation and WLAN range extension and cellular off-loading. In this paper we examine analytically packet error rate (PER) performance of 802.11ah system, for the three defined use case scenarios. We applied system parameters given in adopted standard and appropriate modulation and coding schemes (MCSs), as well as channel fading models, depending on use case scenario. The obtained PER results indicate high reliability of the 802.11ah communication links, even for the long-range communications, especially in the cases with transmit powers of 250mW and 1W.