Markov modeling of 802.11 channels

Wireless fading channels are commonly characterized by Markov models. Almost all models assume the underlying channel has flat fading characteristics and that fairly simply modulation schemes are used. These assumptions are not necessarily valid for wireless channels like the ones used by IEEE 802.11 technologies. Although Markov models of wireless channels have been widely used to study the performance of communications protocols at the link and transport layers, no validation of their accuracy has been performed against experimental data. We use experimental traces that represent the frame error process in 802.11a and 802.11b networks under different conditions to test the accuracy of the traditional models. We finish by suggesting an approach, based on experimental results, for the parameterization of a two-state Markov model.