4. Wide area network performance

In this section, we'll be looking at 802.11 performance on networks that are more extensive than the full networks studied in the previous section. In wide-area networks, some mobiles are not within communication range of others, unlike in full-area networks.

However, the scenarios presented here will only involve single-hop communications, i.e. two mobiles seeking to communicate are within radio range. No multi-hop routing will be used. We will therefore study the impact of flow geography on throughput, using the DCF mode of 802.11.