Multimedia Communications over Wireless LANs via the SWL Protocol

The transmission of multimedia data over networks has increased steadily over the past few years and this increase is projected to accelerate in the future. However, virtually all current products and research for multimedia traffic over networks have concentrated solely on transmission of multimedia applications to and from wired terminals. Excluding mobile terminals from multimedia applications such as voice clearly limits the flexibility and potential of those applications. Additionally, the bandwidth allocated for wireless LANs in the IEEE 802.11 standard is limited and overall throughput is limited, and these limitations will become a bottleneck for expanding wireless network capabilities. In this paper, we exploit another resource, i.e., space, and design a new Smart Wireless LAN (SWL) protocol to achieve throughput multiplication and flexibility for mixed traffic networks. Experimental studies and computer simulations will show the feasibility and performance benefits for using SWL with wireless LANs, particularly for multimedia applications.