Fairness and Delay in MU-MIMO WLANs

In this paper, the Single-User (SU) and Multi-User (MU) transmission approaches in Multiple Input-Multiple Output (MIMO) Wireless Local Area Networks (WLANs) are compared. The impact of the transmission strategy on both short-term and long-term fairness and frame delay distribution is studied. This paper is focused on the previously presented Single-User - Distributed Coordination Function (SU-DCF) and Multi-User - Distributed Coordination Function (MU-DCF), both based on the IEEE 802.11 Distributed Coordination Function (DCF). A comparative performance analysis is given, and despite the increased system complexity, it is argued in favor of MU systems.