Throughput Measurements and Empirical Prediction Models for IEEE 802.11b Wireless LAN (WLAN) Installations

Typically a wireless LAN infrastructure is designed and installed by Networking Professionals. These individuals are extremely familiar with wired networks, but are often unfamiliar with wireless networks. Thus, Wireless LAN installations are currently handicapped by the lack of an accurate, performance prediction model that is intuitive for use by non-wireless professionals. To provide a solution to this problem, this thesis presents a method of predicting the expected wireless LAN throughput using a site-specific model of an indoor environment. In order to develop this throughput prediction model, two wireless LAN throughput measurement products, LANFielder and SiteSpy, were created. These two products, which are patent pending, allow site-specific network performance measurements to be made. These two software packages were used to conduct an extensive measurement campaign to evaluate the performance of two IEEE 802.11b access points (APs) under ideal, multi-user, and interference scenarios. The data from this measurement campaign was then used to create empirically based throughput prediction models. The resulting models were first developed using RSSI measurements and then confirmed using predicted signal strength parameters.