Algorithmic Identification of the Best WLAN Protocol and Network Architecture for Internet-Based Applications

This research developed a novel algorithm to evaluate internet-based services such as VoIP, Video Conferencing, HTTP and FTP, of different IEEE 802.11 technologies in order to identify the optimum network architecture among Basic Service Set (BSS), Extended Service Set (ESS) and the Independent Basic Service Set (BSS). The proposed algorithm will yield the rank order of different IEEE 802.11 technologies. By selecting the optimum network architecture and technology, the best overall network performance that provides good voice, video and data quality is guaranteed. Furthermore, it meets the acceptance threshold values for the VoIP, Video Conferencing, HTTP and FTP quality metrics. This algorithm was applied to various room sizes ranging from 2 x 3 m to 10 x 14 m and the number of nodes ranged from 1 to 65. The spatial distributions considered were circular, uniform and random. The Quality of Service (QoS) metrics used were delay, jitter, throughput and packet loss.