Load Balancing in IEEE 802.11 Networks

Because wireless stations independently select which access points to camp on, the total wireless station traffic on all available IEEE 802.11 network APs might be unevenly distributed. This load-balancing problem can lead to overloading and network congestion. This survey examines the problem, along with state-of-the-art network- and wireless-station-based solutions. It also presents experimental results using off-the-shelf IEEE 802.11 devices. As the results show, effectively balancing AP traffic loads can increase overall system throughputs.

[1]  Yuji Oie,et al.  Decentralized access point selection architecture for wireless LANs /sub e/ployability and robustness , 2004, IEEE 60th Vehicular Technology Conference, 2004. VTC2004-Fall. 2004.

[2]  Mike Y. Chen,et al.  Improved access point selection , 2006, MobiSys '06.

[3]  Martin Heusse,et al.  Performance anomaly of 802.11b , 2003, IEEE INFOCOM 2003. Twenty-second Annual Joint Conference of the IEEE Computer and Communications Societies (IEEE Cat. No.03CH37428).

[4]  Michael D. Logothetis,et al.  A study on dynamic load balance for IEEE 802.11b wireless LAN , 2002 .

[5]  A. M. Abdullah,et al.  Wireless lan medium access control (mac) and physical layer (phy) specifications , 1997 .

[6]  Paramvir Bahl,et al.  Hot-spot congestion relief in public-area wireless networks , 2002, Proceedings Fourth IEEE Workshop on Mobile Computing Systems and Applications.

[7]  Bob O'Hara,et al.  Medium access control (MAC) , 2005 .

[8]  Raj Jain,et al.  Analysis of the Increase and Decrease Algorithms for Congestion Avoidance in Computer Networks , 1989, Comput. Networks.

[9]  Donald F. Towsley,et al.  Facilitating access point selection in IEEE 802.11 wireless networks , 2005, IMC '05.

[10]  Gunnar Karlsson,et al.  Load balancing in overlapping wireless LAN cells , 2004, 2004 IEEE International Conference on Communications (IEEE Cat. No.04CH37577).

[11]  Seung-Jae Han,et al.  Fairness and Load Balancing in Wireless LANs Using Association Control , 2004, IEEE/ACM Transactions on Networking.

[12]  Laurie G. Cuthbert,et al.  Intelligent radio resource management for IEEE 802.11 WLAN , 2004, 2004 IEEE Wireless Communications and Networking Conference (IEEE Cat. No.04TH8733).

[13]  Li-Hsing Yen,et al.  SNMP-Based Approach to Load Distribution in IEEE 802.11 Networks , 2006, 2006 IEEE 63rd Vehicular Technology Conference.

[14]  D. Pesch,et al.  Load Balancing for QoS Enhancement in IEEE 802 . 11 e WLANs Using Cell Breathing Techniques , 2005 .

[15]  Víctor Aleo,et al.  Load Distribution In IEEE 802 . 11 Cells , 2003 .