Analysing the transition between unsaturated and saturated operating conditions in 802.11 network scenarios

The aim of this paper is an investigation of 802.11 scenarios, and in particular to evaluate the nature of the transition between unsaturated and saturated operating conditions. Most existing analyses do not adequately account for the extra idle state, and typically assume saturated behaviour even for unsaturated conditions. This paper introduces an extension to the Bianchi Markov chain that deals with the accurate evaluation of contention behaviour across the load range. Results compare favourably with simulation, and indicate the presence of hysteresis in both throughput and the access time.