Voice capacity evaluation of IEEE 802.11a with automatic rate selection

This paper analyzes the transmission of voice and isochronous traffic in general over an 802.11a wireless local area network. In particular, we provide a simple analytic technique for estimating the capacity of an 802.11a access point under the contention-based access method when all stations can select an optimal transmission rate using automatic rate selection. Capacity is additionally estimated using a wireless LAN (WLAN) system simulator that models contention-based access in a noise limited channel, in which packet erasures are modeled using quasi-static link simulation techniques. The impact of automatic rate selection on capacity is evaluated. Results from the analytic and simulation based methods of estimating capacity are compared. In addition, impact on voice capacity from data traffic is studied.