Method and apparatus to provide air time fairness in multiple physical transmission rate wireless systems
AssigneeKonlinklijke Philips Electronics N.V.
InventorSai Shankar Nandagopalan
Life of this patent
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Abstract
A method for providing bandwidth fairness in a wireless network includes determining bandwidth requirement for a particular service interval for each of a plurality wireless stations in a network. The method also includes determining an allocated transmission time for each of the plurality of wireless stations based on a minimum physical transmission rate. Additionally the illustrative method includes fragmenting a packet of at least one of the wireless stations if the at least one wireless station transmits at other transmission rates that are less than the minimum physical transmission rate. An apparatus is adapted to effect the illustrative method.
Claims16
A method of providing bandwidth fairness in a wireless network that includes a plurality of wireless stations that share the wireless network bandwidth during a particular service interval, the method comprising:
- determining bandwidth requirement for the particular service interval for each of the wireless stations;
- determining an allocated transmission time for each of the wireless stations based on a set physical transmission rate, wherein each of the wireless stations has individually allocated transmission time based on at least the quantity of data that needs to be transmitted within the service interval by each of the wireless stations;
- and
- fragmenting a packet by at least one of the wireless stations if the at least one wireless station transmits at a transmission rate that is lower than the set physical transmission rate,
- wherein the allocated transmission time is equal to the total data of all packets generated in the beacon interval divided by the set physical transmission rate.
A wireless network, comprising:
- at least one access point;
- and
- a plurality of wireless stations that share the wireless network bandwidth during a service interval, wherein in the service interval, the access point allocates a transmission time for each of the wireless stations based on their transmission requirements at a set physical transmission rate that is fixed for the service interval, wherein each of the wireless stations has individually allocated transmission time based on at least the quality of data that needs to be transmitted within the service interval by each of the wireless stations;
- and wherein the plurality of wireless stations transmit at the set physical transmission rate;
- and wherein if any of the plurality of wireless stations change their transmission rate to a lower transmission rate than the set physical transmission rate during the service interval, each of the wireless stations that change their transmission rate fragment their respective packets into two or more fragments of equal length, wherein the allocated transmission time is equal to the total data of all packets generated in the beacon interval divided by the set physical transmission rate.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.