Throughput Optimization of Multi-BSS IEEE 802.11 Networks with Universal Frequency Reuse

For IEEE 802.11 networks with multiple basic service sets (BSSs), most studies have focused on how to allocate different frequency sub-channels to BSSs for minimizing the co-channel interference. With the significant increase of the subchannel bandwidth, however, it becomes increasingly important to study the network performance with universal frequency reuse. In this paper, we focus on an uplink M-BSS IEEE 802.11 network, where all the BSSs share the frequency band rather than operate at different sub-channels. By dividing the nodes in each BSS into multiple groups according to the set of access points (APs) they can be heard by, the steady-state points of M BSSs in saturated conditions are obtained as the functions of the number of nodes in each group and the initial backoff window size of nodes of each BSS. The maximum network throughput is further characterized by optimally choosing the initial backoff window sizes of all the nodes and shown to be closely dependent on the percentage of nodes that can be heard by multiple APs. The comparison with orthogonal frequency division reveals that although the maximum network throughput is degraded due to interference among BSSs, a higher network data rate can still be achieved by universal frequency reuse, which makes it a preferable option for multi-BSS IEEE 802.11 networks.