A dynamically adaptable polling scheme for voice support in IEEE802.11 networks

This paper presents a new dynamically adaptable polling scheme for efficient support of voice communications over an IEEE802.11 network. The proposed Cyclic Shift and Station Removal polling scheme is implemented only on the Access Point of each Basic Service Set without requiring any modification on the existing access protocol. This polling scheme increases the number of conversations in case of silence detection, while maintains high voice quality. By considering constant bit rate digitized voice traffic, the paper presents a discretetime Markov chain model, that is, used to analyze the performance of the IEEE802.11 Point Coordination Function in terms of maximum number of supported conversations, when silence detection is used at the mobile terminals. The paper also determines how the parameters of the proposed polling scheme have to be related to the silence detector hangover. q 2002 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.