A simple model for nonsaturated IEEE 802.11 DCF networks

We propose a simple approximate model for a nonsaturated IEEE 802.11 DCF network. Our model is much simpler than others that have appeared in the literature. The main simplification we introduce is that the attempt rate in the nonsaturated setting can be approximated by scaling the attempt rate of the saturated setting with the probability of a packet arrival. We verify our model using ns-2 simulation and show that our MAC access delay result is the most accurate amongst related work, while our collision probability and throughput results achieve comparable accuracy to [1].