Performance analysis of IEEE 802.11 WLAN to support voice services

This paper studies the performance of the IEEE 802.11 standard MAC protocol for integrated data and voice transmission with the DCF (distributed coordination function) and the PCF (point coordination function). By simulation, we evaluate the network performance for various protocol parameters, especially, the delay jitter for voice traffic. The main factor to influence delay jitter is given. Numerical results show that it is important to choose appropriate parameters and compromise the number of voice stations and the data traffic throughput to get the enhanced performance of IEEE 802.11. The performance of protocol in theory is derived and is verified by the simulation results.