Benchmarking for RTN, a real-time variation on IEEE802.11

RTN is a network access protocol that uses a token scheduling mechanism to enable real-time multimedia streaming on Ethernet-like networks. Unlike other token based protocols, RTNs token mechanism is based on pre-emptive earliest deadline first (PEDF) scheduling. PEDF has interesting characteristics, such as one hundred percent bandwidth utilization and a uncomplicated feasibility analysis. RTN is simulated and implemented on Ethernet and IEEE802.11. The latter implementation is not straightforward, because some for RTN important details are not defined in the standard. As a consequence the standard had to be evaluated before adaptation and implementation of RTN could start. This paper briefly describes the RTN protocol. The focus, however, is on benchmarking the IEEE802.11 standard.