Access points with selective communication rate and scheduling control and related methods for wireless local area networks (WLANs)

A wireless transmit/receive unit (WTRU) for conducting wireless communications with a plurality of other WTRUs that implements a process for controlling transmission of wireless communication data to the other WTRUs comprising:

• a memory device configured with a plurality of selectively defined data packet transmission queues based on selected data packet characteristics including data class such that each queue is associated with a respective selected data class of service;
• a processor configured to associate a queue arrival time with successive data packets received for transmission queuing and to store each data packet in connection with its queue arrival time in a respective queue based on the selected data packet characteristics and data class of service such that, in each queue in which any of the data packets are stored, a data packet is disposed at a head of the queue that has an identified earliest queue arrival time relative to the queue arrival time identified with other data packets in the same queue;
• said processor configured to selectively enable transmission of queued data packets by removing a data packet for transmission processing from the head of a selected queue based on priority indexes of data packets concurrently disposed at the heads of the queues;
• and
• said processor configured to calculate the priority index of a data packet using a delay index based on a current time and the queue arrival time identified with the data packet, a data rate index based on a data transmission rate associated with the data packet and a weight factor α, based on data class of service such that the weight factor is applied to adjust the applicable priority index applied to data packets for a queue based on the data class associated with that queue according to
• priority index=[α×data rate index]+[(1−α)×delay index].

A method for a wireless transmit/receive unit (WTRU) to conduct wireless communications with a plurality of other WTRUs that implements a process for controlling transmission of wireless communication data to the other WTRUs, the method comprising:

• queuing data packets in one of a plurality of queues for transmission to the other WTRUs based on selected criteria including data class of service such that:
• each queue is associated with a selected data class and only data packets having data of the respective selected data class of service associated with a queue are queued in that queue;
• a queue arrival time is identified with each queued data packet;
• and
• in each queue in which any of the data packets are queued, a data packet is disposed at a head of the queue that has an identified earliest queue arrival time relative to the queue arrival time identified with other data packets in the same queue;
• and
• selectively enabling transmission of queued data packets by removing a data packet for transmission processing from the head of one of the queues based on a priority indexes of data packets concurrently disposed at the heads of the queues where the priority index of a data packet is calculated using a delay index based on the current time and the queue arrival time identified with the data packet, a data rate index based on a data transmission rate associated with the data packet and a weight factor based on data class of service such that the weight factor α, is applied to adjust the applicable priority index applied to data packets for a queue based on the data class associated with that queue according to
• priority index=[α×data rate index]+[(1−α)×delay index].