Scheduling of real-time traffic in IEEE 802.11 wireless LANs

The desire to provide universal connectivity for mobile computers and commu nication devices is fueling a growing interest in wireless packet networks. To satisfy the needs of wireless data networking, study group 802.11 was f ormed under IEEE project 802 to recommend an international standard for Wir eless Local Area Networks (WLANs). A key part of the standard are the Mediu m Access Control (MAC) protocols. Given the growing popularity of real-time services and multimedia based applications it is critical that the 802.11 MAC protocols be tailored to meet their requirements. The 802.11 MAC layer protocol provides asynchronous, time-bounded, and contention free access co ntrol on a variety of physical layers. In this paper we examine the ability of the point coordination function to support time bounded services. We pr esent our proposal to support real-time services within the framework of th e point coordination function and discuss the specifics of the connection e stablishment procedure. We conduct performance evaluation and present numer ical results to help understand the issues involved.