Analysis of Traffic splitting over a Multi-hop network with Hybrid WiMAX and WiFi nodes

IEEE 802.16 (WiMAX) and IEEE 802.11 (WiFi) are different wireless access technologies with the former being used in Metropolitan Area Networks and the latter used in Local Area Networks. With the increase in popularity of WiMAX and WiFi networks, it is expected that mobile devices in future will be equipped with these radios for data access. Such a scenario presents us with an opportunity to utilize both these radios to optimize throughput. In this paper, we present an analysis of Traffic splitting over an abstract Multi-radio, Multi-hop wireless mesh network for improvements in throughput, where each device is equipped with WiMAX and WiFi radios. We attempt to setup a mathematical model that deals with the following issues: What constitutes a Hybrid Network Node; How should traffic splitting decisions be made; What parameters a suitable routing protocol should look out for when making routing decisions in such a network; finally, How does traffic splitting improve network performance? From the analysis performed it is seen that traffic splitting improves throughput and reduces end-to-end delay of a flow.