Resource Estimation on Wireless Backhaul Networks

The increased usage of IEEE 802.11 wireless backhaul networks and the growing popularity of real time applications, such as VoIP, presents a challenging resource management problem due to the limited capacity of wireless networks. At high traffic volumes, measurements have shown that packet collisions and interference in 802.11 networks can lead to degraded performance to the extent that users experience unacceptably low throughput, which can ultimately lead to complete network breakdown [1]. A resource management framework that limits network flows can prevent network breakdown and improve the performance of throughput and delay-sensitive multimedia applications. To address this problem, we present a measurement-driven framework that leverages wireless characteristics for intelligent admission control in a static wireless network. Experiments on a 25 node wireless testbed show that the proposed scheme can enhance network performance such that the QoS requirements of real time applications, such as VoIP, can be met.