An Adaptive Queue Management Mechanism for Improving TCP Fairness in the Infrastructure WLAN

Abstract:
Research studies have uncovered the unfair WLAN bandwidth distribution between uplink and downlink TCP flows in the infrastructure WLAN using the Distributed Coordination Function mode. Different mechanisms at or above the MAC layer have been proposed for handling this problem. This paper presents a simple but effective approach in order to achieve the fair distribution by using an adaptive queue management mechanism to manage the queue between the logic link and MAC layers at the access point. Extensive simulation results show that this approach outperforms other mechanisms discussed in the literature over a wide range of network scenarios in terms of fair distribution, small delay, and high WLAN bandwidth utilization.