1st International ICST Workshop on Game Theory for Networks

Research Article

Incentive compatible medium access control in wireless networks

  • @INPROCEEDINGS{10.1145/1190195.1190199,
        author={Nassir  BenAmmar and John S.  Baras},
        title={Incentive compatible medium access control in wireless networks},
        proceedings={1st International ICST Workshop on Game Theory for Networks},
        publisher={ACM},
        proceedings_a={GAMENETS},
        year={2012},
        month={4},
        keywords={Wireless Networks Medium Access Control Vickrey Auction},
        doi={10.1145/1190195.1190199}
    }
    
  • Nassir BenAmmar
    John S. Baras
    Year: 2012
    Incentive compatible medium access control in wireless networks
    GAMENETS
    ACM
    DOI: 10.1145/1190195.1190199
Nassir BenAmmar1,*, John S. Baras1,*
  • 1: Institute for Systems Research, Dept. of Electrical and Computer Engineering, University of Maryland, College Park, MD 20742.
*Contact email: nassir@isr.umd.edu, baras@isr.umd.edu

Abstract

The current IEEE 802.11 medium access control standard is being deployed in coffee shops, in airports and even across major cities. The terminals accessing these wi-fi access points do not belong to the same entity, as in corporate networks, but are usually individually owned and operated. Entities sharing these network resources have no incentive in following protocol rules other than to optimize their overall utility, usually a function of throughput and delay. We briefly discuss shortfalls of the current IEEE 802.11 standard in environments where terminals are competing for a common bandwidth resource, and then we introduce a new MAC protocol designed with the above considerations. Thus the new Incentive Compatible MAC (ICMAC) protocol is more suited for these open environments, without compromising the overall network performance.