Optional Tools of the Wi-Fi protocol: Study in Saturation

IEEE 802.11 protocol called also the Wireless Fidelity (Wi-Fi) one specifies a technology for wireless local area networks (LANs) and mobile networking. In contrary to previous works dealing with the Basic Mechanism of the protocol, in this paper we focus on such optional tools as the RTS/CTS technique and packet fragmentation, which are oriented on fight with collisions and noise-induced distortion. With the study, we present an analytical method of estimating both the saturation throughput of a Wi-Fi LAN and probability of a packet rejection occurring when the number of packet transmission retries attains its limit. This method allows finding areas where the optional tools show their efficiency and tuning optimally the corresponding Wi-Fi managed parameters.