Provisioning service differentiation in ad hoc networks by modification of the backoff algorithm

An ad hoc network is a rapidly deployable wireless network that has no centralized control mechanism. Mobile devices in an ad hoc network request a variety of data types, including text and multimedia data. Different types of data need to be treated with different qualities of service. The implementation of service differentiation in wireless networks is very difficult because of device mobility and wireless channel contention. A backoff algorithm is used for resolving contention. Modification of the conventional backoff algorithm allows the design of several classes of flows. This paper specifies three types of flow classes: gold, silver, and bronze. Simulation results illustrate that the gold class flows receive almost up to their requested target bandwidth and the silver class flows are treated with reasonably high bandwidth allocation compared to the bronze class flows.