The effect of inter-flow contention on the throughput in MANETs

The desire of users for real time applications on mobile ad hoc networks (MANETs) is rising. These types of applications require assurances in terms of throughput, delay and jitter. However, the guarantee of throughput in MANETs is challenging due to the contention between nodes, collisions and mobility. The nature of the shared channel in MANETs results in two types of contention which are the intra-flow contention and inter-flow contention. This paper investigates the inter-flow contention through its effect on the throughput of flows in MANETs, the simulations are carried out by network simulator NS2. The results show that the effects of the inter-flow contention have a significant impact on the throughput. The average of degradation on the throughput of flows can reach up to 65%.