WLAN 802.11e evaluation performance using OPNET

The low cost and easy deployment of Wireless LAN 802.11 standard means it becomes more and more popular, but it has a vital drawback with regard to Quality of Service (QoS). QoS defines the ability of network to introduce consistent services for data transmission, and is evaluated in terms of specific parameters such as jitter, delay, and packet loss. These parameters describe data traffic quality over a network. Service differentiation should be offered to let higher priority multimedia traffic to get a preferred treatment. This deficiency of Wireless LAN 802.11 MAC mechanisms in offering QoS support is a major obstacle in the adaptation of modern multimedia applications in Wireless LAN 802.11 networks. This paper aims to build different scenarios to evaluate QoS characteristics and to examine the effect of enhancement on the QoS. The evaluation, implemented using the OPNET simulator, will contain the different parameters of Wireless LAN 802.11e to see how this enhancement in distributed channel access increases the performance over the Wireless LAN 802.11 standard. The results gives a clear picture that the enhanced standard offers a very effective service mechanism to provide QoS support.