Modeling the Impact of Start-Up Times on the Performance of Resource-on-Demand Schemes in 802.11 WLANs

Abstract

Resource on Demand in 802.11 Wireless LANs is receiving an increasing attention, with its feasibility already proved in practice and some initial analytical models available. However, while these models have assumed that access points (APs) start up in zero time, experimentation has showed that this is hardly the case. In this work, we provide a new model to account for this time in the simple case of a WLAN formed by two APs where the second AP is switched on/off dynamically to adapt to the traffic load and reduce the overall power consumption, and show that it significantly alters the results when compared to the zero start-up time case, both qualitatively and quantitatively.