Unfairness and capture behaviour in 802.11 adhoc networks

We address issues with the performance of IEEE 802.11, when used in the adhoc mode, in the presence of hidden terminals. We present results illustrating the strong dependence of channel capture behavior on the SNR observed on contending hidden connections. Experimental work has illustrated that in a hidden terminal scenario, the connection having the strongest SNR is able to capture the channel, despite the use of the RTS-CTS-DATA-ACK 4-way handshake designed to alleviate this problem. Our results indicate that the near-far SNR problem may have a significant effect on the performance of an adhoc 802.11 network.