Overview of the physical layer for IEEE 802.11 and IEEE 802.

11e standard

Outline
Abstract...3 1. Introduction3 2. Protocol characteristics..................................................................................................................4 2.1 Protocol layers function4 2.1.1 IEEE802.11 functions...4 2.1.2 IEEE802.11e functions5 2.2 Advantages and Disadvantages...6 2.2.1 IEEE802.11 advantages and disadvantages6 2.2.1 .1 Advantages...6 2.2.1.2 Disadvantages...6 2.2.2 IEEE802.11 advantages and disadvantages6 2.2.2.1 Advantages6 2.2.2 .2 Disadvantages....6 3. The Protocol operation...7 4. Applications of 802.11e...12 IP-based multimedia applications.12 IEEE 1394-based multimedia applications...........13 Deterministic access priority of voice in cp..13 5. Problem and solution14 5.1 Problem description.....15 5.2 Solution....15 6. Summary..16 7. Reference list....17

Abstract
In this paper, a comprehensive overview of IEEE 802.11e standard in Wireless Local Area Networks (WLANs) is summarized. Needs of IEEE 802.11e standard and the main features of the protocol are presented. We describe three general applications examples. Moreover, protocol problem and the solution are discussed.

1. Introduction
Wireless Local Area Networks (WLAN or Wi-Fi) is a data transmission system designed to provide location independent network access between computing devices by using radio waves rather than a cable infrastructure. The most widely implemented WLAN technologies are based on the IEEE 802.11 standard [1]. IEEE 802.11(The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers) is a set of standards for implementing WLAN computer communication in the 2.4, 3.6 and 5 GHz frequency bands. They are created and maintained by the IEEE LAN /MAN (Metropolitan Area Network )Standards Committee (IEEE 802) [2]. In 1990, the IEEE 802 committee formed a new working group, IEEE 802.11, specifically devoted to wireless LANs, with a charter to develop a MAC protocol and physical medium specification [3]. The original version of the standard IEEE 802.11 was released in 1997 and clarified in 1999. It specified two net bit rates of 1 or 2 megabits per second (Mbit/s), and forward error correction code. It identified three alternative physical layer technologies: infrared operating at 1 Mbit/s, frequency-hopping spread spectrum operating at 1 Mbit/s or 2 Mbit/s, and directsequence spread spectrum operating at 1 Mbit/s or 2 Mbit/s . It also defines carrier sense multiple access with collision avoidance (CSMA/CA) as the medium access method. A significant percentage of the available raw channel capacity is sacrificed via the CSMA/CA mechanisms in order to improve the reliability of data transmissions under diverse and adverse environmental conditions [4]. IEEE 802.11e is an approved amendment to the IEEE 802.11 standard that defines a set of Quality of Service enhancements for wireless LAN applications through modifications to the Media Access Control (MAC) layer and addresses some security issues. The standard is considered of critical importance for delay sensitive applications, such as Voice over Wireless LAN and streaming multimedia. It accommodates time scheduled and polled communication during null periods when no other data is being sent. In addition, it offers improvements to the efficiency of polling and enhancements to channel robustness. Any station implementing 802.11e is referred to as a QoS station, or QSTA [5].
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The widespread of multimedia data and applications transmission over wireless LAN has made it necessity to a QoS support for the IEEE 802.11 standard. Therefore, IEEE 802.11 task group has created a special version, which is 802.11e, which adds a set of QoS enhancement to the original 802.11 MAC [6]. Therefore, the IEEE802.11e provides QoS support to meet the stringent requirements of real-time services and multimedia based applications. The aim of our paper is showing an overview about two popular protocols IEEE 802.11 and IEEE 802.11e. And represent IEEE 802.11e enhance IEEE 802.11 to improve Quality of Service and enhance security mechanisms [3]. IEEE 802.11 and IEEE 802.11e standards are widely used .Wireless networking has a promising future with 802.11 leading the way as the standard for adoption in local networking environments [7]. In this paper we discuss general overview of IEEE 802.11e standard that defines a set of Quality of Service enhancements for WLAN applications to give general background about IEEE 802.11e. The main feature of protocol and its function are presented in Section 2. Section 3 summarizes how the protocol work and its operation diagrams do. In Section 4, Examples on the general application areas Bluetooth are described. Protocol problems and their solutions are illustrated in Section 5.The paper concludes with a summary in Section 6.

2. Protocol characteristics
In this section we discuss the main features of IEEE802.11e over IEEE802.11. So that, we show the main functionality the IEEE802.11 and IEEE802.11e provides and the advantages and disadvantages of IEEE802.11 and IEEE802.11e.

2.1 Protocol layers function We present the main functionality IEEE802.11 and IEEE802.11e provides.

2.1.1 IEEE802.11 functions The basic 802.11 MAC layer uses two coordination functions: Distributed Coordination Function (DCF) and Point Coordination Function (PCF). The distributed coordination function (DCF) to share the medium between multiple stations [8].

The point coordination function (PCF) is available only in "infrastructure" mode, where stations are connected to the network through an Access Point (AP). This mode is optional and only very few APs or Wi-Fi adapters actually implement it. IEEE 802.11 MAC functions can support nine types of services for higher-layer applications: authentication, association, deauthentication, disassociation, distribution, integration, privacy, reassociation and MSDU delivery, which can be divided into two categories of IEEE 802.11 MAC services - the Station Service (SS) and the Distribution System Service (DSS). However, none of them provides support for WLAN applications with QoS requirements. The Station Service (SS) is present in every IEEE 802.11 station (including APs, since APs include station functionality). The SS is specified for use by MAC sub layer entities. All conformant stations provide SSs. The SS includes: authentication, deauthentication, privacy, and MSDU delivery. The Distribution System Service (DSS) is represented in the IEEE 802.11 service architecture by bi-directional arrows within the APs. The architectural component used to interconnect different Basic Service Sets (BSSs) is the Distribution System (DS). The DSSs are provided by the DS. The AP provides stations with access to the DSS. By using DS, an IEEE 802.11 WLAN service area can be extended to an arbitrary size. A mobile station can move from BSS1 to BSS2 service area through the DSS without losing connectivity to other stations. IEEE 802.11 refers to this type of network as the Extended Service Set (ESS) network. It means that several interconnected BSSs form an ESS via a DS. The key point is that stations within an ESS can communicate with each other and mobile stations can roam from one BSS to another BSS within the same ESS. It means that the movements are transparent to the LLC layer. The DSS is made up of follows: association, disassociation, distribution, integration, and reassociation [9].

2.1.2 IEEE802.11e functions While IEEE 802.11 based WLANs have became popular, but they can only provide best effort services and so they are poorly suitable for multimedia applications. Recently IEEE 802.11e standard has been proposed to support quality of service. The new standard introduces a Hybrid Coordination Function (HCF) containing two medium access mechanisms: contention-based channel access and controlled channel access. HCF supports both differentiated and parameterized QoS through prioritized contention-based and controlled contention-free medium access. Within the HCF, there are two methods of channel access, similar to those defined in the legacy 802.11 MAC: HCF Controlled Channel Access (HCCA) and Enhanced Distributed Channel Access (EDCA).

With EDCA, high priority traffic has a higher chance of being sent than low priority traffic: a station with high priority traffic waits a little less before it sends its packet, on average, than a station with low priority traffic. The HCCA provides a hybrid coordinator (HC) with ability to assign a contention free time interval during contention period and contention free period to packet transmission. Therefore, transmission opportunity (TXOP) and service interval (SI) are very important parameters to provide QoS guarantees. HCCA is a polling-based medium and centralized scheduling which is controlled by the HC. Each station that requires a strict QoS support is allowed to send QoS requirement packets to the HC and the HC assign a corresponding transmission opportunity to the station [9].

2.2 Advantages and Disadvantages 2.2.1 IEEE802.11 advantages and disadvantages 2.2.1.1 Advantages Broadband bandwidth capability. Low deployment cost. Internet services access anytime, anywhere. Mobility and connectivity [10]. 2.2.1.2 Disadvantages Only support Best effort services. No build in QoS. Shared medium. 2.2.2 IEEE802.11e advantages and disadvantages 2.2.2.1 Advantages Provide priority including channel bandwidth, controlled and bounded jitter and delay. Minimize the probability of losing and dropping packets. 2.2.2.2 Disadvantages Streams of the same Priority compete; not able to guarantee access. Variations in QoS performance do occur in practice due to product hardware and software variations [11].

3. The Protocol operation

Architecture and important frame formats with HCF and its two access mechanisms EDCA and HCCA, IEEE 802.11e also includes the two coordination functions from the original 802.11, DCF and PCF, in order to provide backward compatibility.

Figure 1: illustrates the architecture of 802.11e MAC.

For backward compatibility, a QSTA can also operate in a non-QoS BSS (nQBSS) by associating itself to a non-QoS AP (nQAP), in case a QAP is not available. On the other hand, a non-QoS STA (nQSTA) may also associate with a QAP in a QBSS, such that it operates just like an ordinary STA in 802.11 and the transmissions from QAP to nQSTA do not use frame formats specific for QoS services. The centrally controlled, contention-free channel access mechanism of HCF, i.e., HCCA, uses a centralized coordinator called HC (Hybrid Controller), which is collocated in QAP. HC operates concurrently with the EDCA just like in the legacy 802.11, i.e., a Contention Free Period (CFP) is followed by a Contention Period (CP), such that the EDCA operates in CP while HC operates both in CP and CFP. This is in contrast with legacy 802.11 where PC can only operate in CFP. It indicates that HC is capable of polling QSTAs both in CP and CFP, and explains why it is referred to as Hybrid Controller. The one bit QoS subfield in Frame Control field of MAC header indicates whether the station is acting as a QSTA or an nQSTA. The field is set to 1 if the station is QSTAs and 0 otherwise.

Figure 2: shows the QoS subfield in the MAC header.

At MAC layer, each frame is assigned a priority in the form of a traffic identifier (TID). TID field in the newly added QoS Control field in the MAC header contains this TID value. UP of the frame is then determined based on this TID value, such that when QAP receives a frame from a QSTA, it gets the UP value from TID field, ranging from 0 to 7.

Figure 3: illustrates the QoS Control and TID fields in the MAC header.

The priority value in TID field is supported only if the station has its QoS subfield in the Frame Control field set to 1, i.e., the station is associated with a QAP and thus working as a QSTA. If no QAP is available and a QSTA is associated with an ordinary AP, i.e., nQAP, then the QSTA is functioning just like an ordinary STA, which is indicated by setting the QoS subfield to 0. In that case, the TID value is meaningless and all frames from the station are treated as frames with priority of Contention, indicating that they shall be transmitted without any priority, as it is done in the DCF. Similarly, if an ordinary station, i.e., STA or nQSTA, is associated with a QAP, all frames from the station are treated as frames with priority of 0. The Queue size field in QoS Control field of the frame header, as seen in Figure 3, specifies the total number of frames of the particular priority/TID the station have in its AC transmit queue, excluding the current frame. TXOP are obtained both in EDCA and HCCA, such that the former is referred to as EDCA TXOP, and the later is referred to as HCCA TXOP or Polled TXOP. An EDCA TXOP is obtained as soon as a QSTA wins access to the medium while operating in EDCA. A HCCA TXOP is granted by the HC
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while operating in HCCA, such that the HC polls individual stations to grant HCCA TXOPs based on their requirements [12]. A QSTA can specify the intention to transmit multiple frames in a TXOP by setting the Duration/ID field in the frame header, such that it also includes the time required to transmit the additional frames. While operating in HCCA, a QSTA can request the TXOP of particular duration by setting the TXOP duration requested subfield of QoS Control field shown in Figure 3. The TID field in that case indicates the AC for which the TXOP is being requested. The HC/QAP may then assign a TXOP of the size requested or of a smaller size. EDCA parameters are defined in EDCA Parameter Set element, and are periodically advertised by the QAP in selected frames (beacons). QAP can adapt these parameters dynamically, depending on the network condition. Figure 4.10 shows the structure of EDCA Parameter Set element.

Figure 4: EDCA Parameter Set element.

The values of EDCA parameters are specified in the subfields AIFSN, ECWmin, ECWmax, and TXOP Limit, in the EDCA Parameter Set element. All QSTAs that receive the EDCA Parameter Set element from QAP update their EDCA parameter 28 Chapter 4. Introduction to IEEE 802.11e .

Figure 5: QoS Capability element and QoS Info field

Values and use new values to contend for the medium. The draft standard specifies the default values of EDCA parameters if not advertised by the QAP. Every time QAP updates the EDCA parameters, it increments the value of EDCAParameter Set Update Count field in QoS Info field in the QoS Capability element sent in selected frames. The QSTAs use this information to confirm
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that they are using the latest set of EDCA parameters. The structure of QoS Capability element is illustrated in Figure 5[13]. The original 802.11 MAC protocol was designed with two modes of communication for wireless stations. The first, Distributed Coordination Function (DCF), is based on Carrier Sense Multiple Access with Collision Avoidance (CSMA/CA), sometimes referred to as "listen before talk." A station waits for a quiet period on the network and begins to transmit data and detect collisions. DCF provides coordination, but it doesn't support any type of priority access of the wireless medium. Secondly, an optional mode, Point Coordination Function (PCF), supports time-sensitive traffic flows. Wireless access points periodically send beacon frames to communicate network identification and management parameters specific to the wireless network. Between the sending of beacon frames, PCF splits the time into a contention-free period (CFP) and a contention period (CP). With PCF enabled, a station can transmit data during contention-free polling periods. However, PCF hasn't been implemented widely because the technology's transmission times are unpredictable. Since DCF and PCF do not differentiate between traffic types or sources, the IEEE developed enhancements in 802.11e to both coordination modes to facilitate QoS. These changes would let critical service requirements be fulfilled while maintaining backward-compatibility with current 802.11 standards. The enhancement to DCF - Enhanced Distribution Coordination Function (EDCF) - introduces the concept of access categories. Each station has four kinds of access categories, or priority levels to differentiate the channel access probability among different traffic sources. With EDCF, high priority traffic has a higher chance of being sent than low priority traffic: a station with high priority traffic waits a little less before it sends its packet, on average, than a station with low priority traffic. This is accomplished by using a shorter contention window (CW) and shorter Arbitration Interframe Space (AIFS). Each access categories (AC) contends for the medium with the same rules as the standard DCF (i.e. wait until the channel is idle for a given amount of interframe space, IFS, and then access/retry following exponential backoff rules). The access probability differentiation is provided by using i) different AIFSs instead of the constant distributed IFS (DIFS) used in DCF, and ii) different values for the minimum/maximum CWs to be used for the backoff time extraction. Then, each AC is specified by the values AIFS [AC], CWmin[AC], and CWmax[AC]. The AIFS [AC] values each differ for an integer number of backoff slots. In particular, AIFS [AC]=AIFSN[AC] aSlotTime + aSIFSTime where AIFSN[AC] is an integer greater than 1 for normal stations and greater than 0 for APs. Table 1 shows the default values of the channel access parameters defined in EDCA for the four ACs (BK = background, BE = best effort, VI = video, VO = voice). Note that these parameters are not fixed: in each beacon frame, the access point (AP) broadcasts the values chosen for each AC. Indeed, these values may also be dynamically adapted
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according to network conditions. Obviously, the smaller the AIFSN[AC] and CWmin[AC], the higher the probability of winning the contention with the other ACs. Separate queues are maintained in each station for different ACs shown in Figure 1, and each behaves as a single enhanced DCF contending entity. When more than one AC of the same station expire its backoff counter, a virtual collision occurs, and the highest-priority packet among the colliding ones is selected for actual transmission on the radio channel.

Priority Access Catagory Background lowest (AC_BK) Best Effort (AC_BE) Video (AC_VO) highest Voice (AC_VI)

CWmin aCWmin aCWmin

CWmax aCWmax aCWmax

AIFSN 7 3 2

aCWmin/2 aCWmin

aCWmin/4 aCWmin/2 2

Table 1: EDCA Default Settings

Figure 6: ACs and Virtual Collision

Another way 802.11e aims to extend the polling mechanism of PCF is with the Hybrid Coordination Function (HCF). The HCF controlled channel access (HCCA) works a lot like PCF. However, in contrast to PCF, in which the interval between two beacon frames is divided into two periods of CFP and CP, the HCCA allows for CFPs being initiated at almost any time during a CP.
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This kind of CFP is called a Controlled Access Phase (CAP) in 802.11e. A CAP is initiated by the AP whenever it wants to send a frame to a station or receive a frame from a station in a contentionfree manner. In fact, the CFP is a CAP too. During a CAP, the Hybrid Coordinator (HC), which is also the AP, controls the access to the medium. During the CP, all stations function in EDCA. The other difference with the PCF is that Traffic Class (TC) and Traffic Streams (TS) are defined. This means that the HC is not limited to per-station queuing and can provide a kind of per-session service. Also, the HC can coordinate these streams or sessions in any fashion it chooses (not just round-robin). Moreover, the stations give info about the lengths of their queues for each Traffic Class (TC). The HC can use this info to give priority to one station over another, or better adjust its scheduling mechanism. Another difference is that stations are given a transmission opportunity (TXOP): they may send multiple packets in a row, for a given time period selected by the HC. During the CP, the HC allows stations to send data by sending contention free (CF)-Poll frames. HCCA is generally considered the most advanced (and complex) coordination function. With the HCCA, QoS can be configured with great precision. QoS-enabled stations have the ability to request specific transmission parameters (data rate, jitter, etc.), which should allow advanced applications like VoIP and video streaming to work more effectively on a Wi-Fi network. HCCA support is not mandatory for 802.11e APs. In fact, few (if any) APs currently available are enabled for HCCA. Implementing the HCCA on end stations uses the existing DCF mechanism for channel access (no change to DCF or EDCA operation is needed). Stations only need to be able to respond to poll messages. On the AP side, a scheduler and queuing mechanism is needed [13].

4. Applications of 802.11e
The IEEE 802.11e focuses on three kinds of multimedia applications: IP-based applications multimedia applications, IEEE 1394-based multimedia applications, and finally Deterministic access priority of voice in cp. IP-based multimedia applications IEEE 802.11e supports high-quality IP streaming multimedia applications between computers, gateways, PDAs (Personal Digital Assistants), STB (Set-in-Box) TVs and so on. Higher layer multimedia applications can use RTP/RTCP protocol and IP DiffServer to map the user priority to IEEE 802.1Dbased MAC priority and then passed the prioritized data to different access categories (ACs) of 802.11e MAC. They communicate to the 802.11e MAC through the 802 Data Service Access Point (DSAP) and Management SAP (MSAP) [14].

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IEEE 1394-based multimedia applications IEEE 1394 is an evolutionary standard over current I/O interfaces and provides a good networking foundation for consumer electronic devices, with hot plug and play, high data rate, and QoS support benefits. The IEEE 802.11e will support at least three simultaneous 1394-based DVD rate MPEG-2 channels, or one HDTV rate MPEG-2 channel over IEEE 802.11a .The IEEE 1394 applications can directly run over the IEEE 802.11e MAC or use an IP encapsulation to run over 802.11e MAC. Since IEEE 1394 bus is a link layer network with isochronous transfer mode capability, it is quite natural that the following demands appear: (1) Transmit specific IP flow through a certain isochronous channel of IEEE1394 bus. (2)Transmit specific AV flow (such as MPEG2-TS) through a certain isochronous channel of IEEE 1394 bus. So it is necessary to notify the relationship between channel ID and IP flow, the bandwidth of the isochronous channel, the direction of the IP flow transmitted through the channel and the attribute of the flow [14]. Deterministic access priority of voice in cp To meet the strict delay requirement of voice traffic, it should be guaranteed that a voice station can access the channel successfully during the CP when needed. In the CP of IEEE 802.11e, EDCA is used. It applies different initial and maximum contention window sizes, and different IFS values to provide differentiation to different types of traffic. However, it provides only statistically rather than deterministically prioritized access to high-priority traffic such as real-time voice. In other words, prioritized access for high-priority traffic is only guaranteed in the long term, but not for every contention. Since each station continues to count down its back off timer once the channel becomes idle for an IFS, a low-priority packet with a large initial back off timer will eventually count down its back off timer to a small value, most likely smaller than the back off timer of a new backlogged high priority packet. Then the low-priority packet grabs the channel, resulting in the high-priority packet waiting a long time for the next competition. With such statistically prioritized access it is hard to satisfy the delay requirement of each voice packet. Furthermore, when applying EDCA, with the increase of low-priority traffic loads, the collision probability seen by high-priority traffic increases. High-priority traffic can suffer performance degradation due to low-priority traffic offering heavy loads. To provide QoS guarantee for voice traffic regardless of the data traffic load in WLAN, data stations should not transmit in the CP until no voice station contends for the channel. As a result, deterministically prioritized access is more appropriate. Only a few voice packets at the beginning of each talk spurt need to contend in the CP, which does not significantly degrade the QoS of data traffic [15].

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5. Problem and solution

In this section we will show problems inherent to collision management within EDCA. But we will first present the Enhanced Distributed Channel Access. The access function used by EDCA is CSMA/CA (Carrier Sense Medium Access with Collision Avoidance). The enhancements that EDCA brings to 802.11 DCF is introducing traffic priorities and hence having four queues with different priorities instead of a unique traffic queue. A prioritized queue is characterized by its Contention Window (CW) range (as in 802.11) and its specific Inter Frame Space (IFS), these elements determine the backoff procedure: making queues from a lower priority wait probabilistically more than those of higher priority before being able to access the medium. The queues (or Access Categories-AC) are baptized according to the applications that could use them. The AC in descending order of priority are: AC VO (AC VOice), AC VI (AC VIdeo), AC BE (AC Best Effort) and AC BK (AC BacKground). In addition to the real collisions (physical collisions on the medium) that involve queues from two different stations, EDCA introduces a new kind of collisions: virtual collisions. Virtual collisions involve two queues belonging to the same station: if the backoff procedures of several (up to 4) different queues within the same station finish at the same time slot, the queue with highest priority will win the right to try to access the medium, the others will behave as if a real collision occurred . In order to clearly expose the problem of collision management in EDCA, we first must define the different scenarios of collision within a station (Figure 7): V CRC: Scenario taking place when a Virtual Collision (V C) occurs within a station followed by a Real Collision (RC) on the medium. V CRC: Scenario taking place when a Virtual Collision occurs within a station and no Real Collision (RC) on the medium. V C RC: Scenario taking place when a Real Collision occurs on the medium that has not been preceded by a Virtual Collision (V C) within the station. V C RC: Scenario where no Collisions, whatsoever, occur. An AC of the station accesses the medium with no problem.

Figure 7: Different possible scenarios (a) V C RC, (b) V C RC, (c) V C RC.
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5.1 Problem description Collision managements essential purpose is protecting and improving medium utilization. However, in the case of a virtual collision, this is not always true. Consider a station with both a AC VO and a AC VI queue. When both queues go into a virtual collision, AC VI having the least priority will have its CW doubled; AC VO will access the medium. If no real collisions occur (scenario V C RC), it is worthless to penalize the AC VI queue (this would have no positive effect on medium utilization). In addition to the previous, EDCAs virtual collision management presents several problems. The first is a problem of priority inversion. AC VI enduring virtual collisions may have its CW become bigger than that of an AC of lesser priority. The other problem is that of fairness. EDCA assigns to each priority a set of characteristics (range of CW, IFS) that should be the same for all queues of the same priority within one Basic Service Set (BSS). In doing this, EDCA supposes that all queues of the same priority should have an equal chance of access to the medium. Because of the way it handles virtual collisions in certain local contexts, equal chance of access is not achieved. We define a local context as the combination of arrival profiles of different queues within the station the queue is. Consider two stations in a BSS. The first, station1 has its queues AC VO and AC VI being used. The second station2 has its AC VI queue used. Both AC VI queues have the same arrival profile. However they are placed in different local contexts. To be fair, EDCA must give equal chance of access to the medium to both AC VI queues. However simulations have been carried out proving EDCAs unfairness, station2s AC VI queue will have a better throughput despite having the same arrival profile. In such a situation, station1s AC VI is subject to virtual collision, this causes its contention window be greater than that of station2s AC VI [16]. 5.2 Solution In order to resolve the problems a modification proposal is made. This modification is based on the following reasoning. The virtual collision management, as defined in 802.11e, justifies itself when having a lot of traffic (scenario V CRC): the extension of CW, after a V C, allows to lower the collision occurrence probability and thus to attain a better medium utilization. On the other hand, when several V C but no RC occur, that would mean the medium is not loaded. It seems interesting not to extend the CW: this way, we avoid both the priority inversion and the unfairness discussed earlier. We then propose to adopt the following behavior: (1) In case of a virtual collision not followed by a real collision (scenario V CRC), the ACs are not penalized. (2) In case of a virtual collision followed by a real collision (scenario V CRC): are penalized both the collided ACs and the ACs that virtually collided within the collided station, thus respecting collision avoidance directives.
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(3) In all other cases, EDCAs behavior is respected. When an AC is penalized, its Contention Window is doubled within the contention window range. The behavior of this proposal should be thoroughly studied as per its fairness and the throughput it achieves [16].

6. Summery
A comprehensive overview of 802.11e is presented. New mechanisms for QoS support, the EDCF and HCF, are evaluated. Their performance is showing problems inherent to collision management within EDCA. The upcoming 802.11e standard will be an efficient mean for QoS support in WLANs for a wide variety of applications. Even with legacy stations operating in DCF, stations operating in EDCF are able to achieve priority over the legacy stations. The HCF provides the means for delivering time-bounded traffic, but requires all stations within the range of the HC to follow its coordination. The focus of our future work includes the etiquettes and policies for distributed QoS guarantees in overlapping QBSSs, dynamic frequency selection, and multi-hop networks, which are crucial for multimedia home networking environments.

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7. Reference List
[1] IEEE tutorial; Mustafa Ergen; June 2002. [2] Guide to Securing Legacy IEEE 802.11 Wireless Networks; Karen Scarfone, Derrick Dicoi, Matthew Sexton, Cyrus Tibbs; July 2008. [3] Wireless Communication and Networks;William Stalling; 2005. [4] A technical Tutorial on the IEEE 802.11 Protcol; Pablo Brenner; July 1996. [5] IEEE 802.11e Wireless LAN for Quality of Service; Stefan Mangold, Sunghyun Choi, Peter May, Ole Klein. [6] The International Arab Journal of Information Technology; October 2009. [7] Introduction to IEEE 802.11; not available; 1995-2010.8. [8] IEEE 802.11 Based MAC Improvements for MANET; Ajay Dureja, Aman Dureja and Meha Khera; 2010. [9] QoS Issues and Enhancements for IEEE 802.11 Wireless LAN; Qiang Ni, Lamia Romdhani, Thierry Turletti, and Imad Aad; November 2002. [10] A Survey of Quality of Service in IEEE 802.11 Networks; Hua Zhu, Ming Li, Imrich Chlamtac, B. Prabhakaran. [11] 802.11 QoS Tutorial; Graham Smith, DSP Group; November 2008. [12] Implementation and Evaluationof IEEE 802.11e Wireless LAN in GloMoSim , Thomas Nilsson. [13] Network in IEEE 802.11e; 2011. [14] QoS Issues and Enhancements for IEEE 802.11 Wireless LAN; Qiang Ni, Lamia Romdhani, Thierry Turletti, and Imad Aad; November 2002. [15] IEEE 802.11E ENHANCEMENT FOR VOICE SERVICE; PING WANG, HAI JIANG, AND WEIHUA ZHUANG; February 2006. [16] IEEE 802.11e: the problem of the virtual collision management within EDCA; Mohamad El Masri; April 2007.
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