Ad hoc Qs: MAC-independent traffic differentiation in IEEE 802.11-based ad hoc WLAN

Prior to the standardisation and deployment of IEEE 802.11e which enables quality-of-service (QoS) on wireless LAN (WLAN), an intermediate solution that enables QoS using the wide deployment of IEEE 802.11b/g makes it an attractive solution. Host Qs provides this solution for infrastructure WLANs. It resides on an Acces Point to provide service differentiate for downstream traffic. However, it does not retain this property when implemented on an ad hoc WLAN. We proposed a slotted-delay scheduler for Host Qs to provide service differentiation when implemented on an ad hoc WLAN. It works in a slotted manner whereby a packet of lower priority is delayed by a number of slots relative to the priority of the packet that is last served or currently being served on the channel. Through simulation, we show that our slotted-delay scheduler is able to provide service differentiation in an ad hoc WLAN. This slotted-delay scheduler can also be used in an infrastructure WLAN for upstream traffic.