Channel assignment in an IEEE 802.11 WLAN based on Signal-To-Interference Ratio

In this paper, we propose a channel-assignment algorithm at the Access Points (APs) of a wireless local area network (WLAN) in order to maximize signal-to-interference ratio (SIR) at the user level. We start with the channel assignment at the APs, which is based on minimizing the total interference between APs. Based on this initial assignment, we calculate the SIR for each user. The algorithm can be applied to any WLAN, irrespective of the user distribution and user load. Results show that the proposed algorithm is capable of significantly increasing the SIR over the WLAN, which in turn improves throughput.