Measurement and Analysis of the Channel Characteristics of an In-Building Wireless Network

In this paper, we report the results of a study characterizing the channel error environment provided by Lucent WaveLAN, a commercial product designed for 2Mbps inbuilding wireless networks. We evaluate the effects of signal strength attenuation due to distance and obstacles, on packet loss rate, burstiness of packet loss, and packet round trip time (RTT). The results show that the packet loss rate and burstiness of packet of this physical layer are comparable to those of wired links if we maintain good signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) (say, above 20dB). The packet RTT variations, however, show different values on the wireless network than those of wired network, which result from additional time taken by the retransmission based error control process in the physical layer. From the results of packet RTT variation, it is seen that the packet delay jitters should be taken into consideration in designing real time or interactive applications on the wireless network.

[1]  Reinaldo A. Valenzuela,et al.  Estimating local mean signal strength of indoor multipath propagation , 1997 .

[2]  S. Seidel,et al.  914 MHz path loss prediction models for indoor wireless communications in multifloored buildings , 1992 .

[3]  Peter Steenkiste,et al.  Measurement and analysis of the error characteristics of an in-building wireless network , 1996, SIGCOMM 1996.

[4]  Hermann Bischl,et al.  Packet error rate in the non-interleaved Rayleigh channel , 1995, IEEE Trans. Commun..

[5]  Michele Zorzi,et al.  On the statistics of block errors in bursty channels , 1997, IEEE Trans. Commun..

[6]  Theodore S. Rappaport,et al.  The impact of surrounding buildings on propagation for wireless in-building personal communications system design , 1992, [1992 Proceedings] Vehicular Technology Society 42nd VTS Conference - Frontiers of Technology.

[7]  William Turin,et al.  Modeling Error Sources in Digital Channels , 1993, IEEE J. Sel. Areas Commun..

[8]  Bruce Tuch,et al.  Development of WaveLAN®, an ISM band wireless LAN , 1993, AT&T Technical Journal.

[9]  A.A.M. Saleh,et al.  A Statistical Model for Indoor Multipath Propagation , 1987, IEEE J. Sel. Areas Commun..

[10]  L. B. Milstein,et al.  On the accuracy of a first-order Markov model for data transmission on fading channels , 1995, Proceedings of ICUPC '95 - 4th IEEE International Conference on Universal Personal Communications.

[11]  S. E. Alexander.  Characterising buildings for propagation at 900 MHz , 1983 .