Buffer unit multiple access (BUMA) protocol: an enhancement to IEEE 802.11b DCF

One of the limitations of IEEE 802.11b DCF protocol is the low bandwidth utilization in the medium-to-high traffic load conditions, and consequently, it achieves low throughput and high mean packet delay. In this paper we propose an extension of the IEEE 802.11b DCF protocol called the buffer unit multiple access (BUMA) protocol that overcomes these shortcoming of the original IEEE 802.11 protocol. The proposed BUMA scheme achieves higher throughput (up to 35%) and lower mean packet delay (up to 87%) than the IEEE 802.11b DCF protocol at medium-to-high traffic load conditions. In this paper the BUMA scheme is described and simulation results are presented to verify the performance