I-Poll: Improved Polling Scheme for Augmenting Voice Support in IEEE 802.11 PCF

In this paper, we present a polling scheme which allows for augmenting the support of voice communications in point co-ordination function (PCF) of IEEE 802.11 wireless networks. In this scheme, the Access Point (AP) of the Basic Service Set (BSS) maintains two polling lists, i.e. the talking list and the silence list. Based on the talking status of the stations identified via silence detection, two lists are dynamically adjusted by the AP. Temporary removal is applied to the stations in the silence list to further upgrade the performance. The conducted study based on simulation has shown that the proposed scheme can support more voice stations and has a lower packet loss rate than that obtained by four reference polling algorithms. key words: IEEE 802.11, PCF, polling, silence detection