Deterministic Service on IEEE 802.11-Like Networks

Wireless IEEE 802.11 networks are typically deployed as a convenient and flexible way to access wired backbones. However, due to the inherently shared nature and physical properties of their communication medium, performance limits are easily reached. Some standard Medium Access Control (MAC) solutions trade simplicity for performance yielding an overall throughput possibly much lower than the actual transmission rate. Moreover, given that many applications with real-time requirements, such as VoIP phones, IPTV, videoconferencing, distributed gaming, are getting increasingly deployed and important to users, it is mandatory for the wireless access to support them. However, the delay and jitter introduced by current IEEE 802.11 standard MAC solutions in some critical, although not uncommon, scenarios can be unacceptable for real-time applications.