Performance analysis of the IEEE 802.11 DCF

Wireless Local Area Networks (WLANs) have been attracted significant research interest during the last few years. The IEEE 802.11 standard is the most mature and widely adopted standard in current wireless networks. This paper proposes a new model to analyze channel throughput, packet processing rate, packet loss probability and average packet delay in IEEE 802.11 Wireless Local Area Networks. Theoretical results are derived and subsequently compared with simulation results using ns2. The close agreement between the theoretical and simulation results under number of conditions reaffirms the accuracy of the derived analytical model.