March 2008 doc.: IEEE 802.

11-08/0307

On the feasibility of 1Gbps for various MAC/PHY

architectures
Date: 2008-03-17

Authors:

Name Company Address Phone email

Roberta Fracchia Motorola Parc les Algorithmes +33 1 Roberta.Fracchia@motoro
la.com
91193 Gif sur Yvette 69354846
France
Marc Motorola Marc.de.Courville
@motorola.com
de Courville
Stephanie Motorola Stephanie.Rouquette@mo
torola.com
Rouquette

Submission Slide 1 Roberta Fracchia (Motorola)

March 2008 doc.: IEEE 802.11-08/0307

Abstract

This analysis provides inputs on the technical

feasibility of achieving 1Gbps aggregated
MAC SAP throughput for below 6GHz
amendment, by using different MAC layers
which manage the access to different parallel
channels

Submission Slide 2 Roberta Fracchia (Motorola)

 March 2008 doc.: IEEE 802.11-08/0307

802.11n MAC Throughput

Intel presentation 07/2431r0 shows that at least 160MHz BW
for 4x4 MIMO are necessary to reach 1Gbps MAC throughput
(corresponding to 2048 Mbps PHY rate)
Throughput
2000

1800
aggregate MAC throughput (Mbps)

1600
PHY rate
1400
Target MAC throughput 260Mbps
1200
520Mbps
1000 1040Mbps
800 1560Mbps
600 2080Mbps
4160Mbps
400

200

0 802.11n
1 5 10 15 20 25 30 35 40 45 50
number of nodes

Considering a single channel, whose access is managed by a

single MAC, the MAC efficiency is ~64% for 1Gbps PHY rate
and ~40% for a PHY rate of 4Gbps (5 STAs)
Submission Slide 3 Roberta Fracchia (Motorola)
 March 2008 doc.: IEEE 802.11-08/0307

Multichannel CSMA
Performance can be improved by the use of multiple channels:
multiple CSMA channels perform better with respect to a
single-channel CSMA in case of fixed aggregated bandwidth
Multi-channel CSMA protocols achieve higher performance
than single channel ones since the MAC throughput doesnt
scale linearly with the PHY throughput:
MAC Throughput (Mbps)

3000
If the total bandwidth B is divided in N channels of
bandwidth BN=B/N, the maximum total MAC
2000
2x1000 throughput is
2000
1000 Throughput_MultiCh (B) = N Throughput (BN)
> Throughput (B)
0 1000 2000 3000 (As a first approximation PHY throughput for a given spectral
PHY Throughput (Mbps) efficiency scales linearly as a function of the bandwidth)

By allowing concurrent transmissions the number of collisions

is also reduced, thus increasing the MAC throughput
Submission Slide 4 Roberta Fracchia (Motorola)
March 2008 doc.: IEEE 802.11-08/0307
Maximum MAC throughput with
multiple channels
1600
BN=20MHz
1400 BN=40MHz
Aggregated MAC Throughput (Mb/s)

We evaluate the maximum

1200 throughput that can be
achieved considering
1000 AMSDU
NSS= 4 TXOP=2ms
800 Packet size = 1500B
NSS= 3 CW=15
600 64 QAM 5/6
NSS= 2 3 users per channel
400

200

0
40 50 60 70 80 90 100 110 120
Total bandwidth B (MHz)

To reach 1Gbps throughput with 4 Spatial Streams: 100 MHz BW (with

parallel channels) wrt 160 MHz BW (with a single channel) are required
Submission Slide 5 Roberta Fracchia (Motorola)
 March 2008 doc.: IEEE 802.11-08/0307

Remarks
The finer the channel granularity, the higher the gain:
20 MHz channels are better than 40 MHz channels
80 MHz BW:
900 Mbps throughput with NSS=4
650 Mbps throughput with NSS=3
450 Mbps throughput with NSS=2
100 MHz BW:

Aggregated MAC Throughput (Mb/s)

100MHz BW
1.1 Gbps throughput with NSS=4 1200

NSS= 4
850 Mbps throughput with NSS=3
1000
550 Mbps throughput with NSS=2
120 MHz BW: 800 NSS= 3

1 Gbps throughput with NSS=3 600 NSS= 2

650 Mbps throughput with NSS=2 5 10 20 30 40
Total Number of users
Submission Slide 6 Roberta Fracchia (Motorola)
 March 2008 doc.: IEEE 802.11-08/0307

Architectural solutions for multiple CSMA (1/2)

We assume that the total bandwidth B is divided in N channels of bandwidth BN=B/N

1. Each user has 1 radio, to access 1 of the N channels

STA
One MAC/PHY for each user
MAC
B Many works in the literature proposing:
BN Channel hopping strategies
PHY
Synchronization and access methods
Use of a Control channel

2. Each user has N radios, one for each channel

A Multi-Radio Unification Protocol for IEEE
STA 802.11Wireless Networks, A. Adya, P. Bahl, J.
MAC controller
Padhye, A. Wolman, L. Zhou (Microsoft Research)

MAC MAC MAC The access to the N channels given by N multiple

wireless network cards (multiple MAC/PHY layers),
PHY PHY PHY coordinated by a MAC controller which:
presents a single MAC SAP to layers above
monitors the channel quality on each interface
selects the interface to forward the packet on

Submission Slide 7 Roberta Fracchia (Motorola)

 March 2008 doc.: IEEE 802.11-08/0307

Architectural solutions for multiple CSMA (2/2)

We assume that the total bandwidth B is divided in N channels of bandwidth BN=B/N

3. Each user has multiple MACs but only one PHY layer

Multiple MACs, coordinated by a MAC

STA
controller, regulate the access to the N
MAC controller
channels
A single PHY layer uses the total
MAC MAC MAC bandwidth: a single FFT is done on the
bandwidth B
PHY
The use of different channels is allowed,
with the same number of antennas used
for a single channel bandwidth

Submission Slide 8 Roberta Fracchia (Motorola)

 March 2008 doc.: IEEE 802.11-08/0307

Conclusions
Single channel bandwidth extension is not a suitable solution
to match 1 Gbps throughput
Parallel channels can highly improve the MAC throughput
This stresses out the importance of introducing in VHT the
support for multiple transmissions at the same time
expanding on the multi-user dimension
1Gbps feasibility is provided with 100MHz BW for NSS=4
(~40% of bandwidth gain compared to single channel)
800 Mbps feasibility is provided with 100MHz BW for NSS=3
500 Mbps feasibility is provided with 100MHz BW for NSS=2
But opens up new challenges to define the most suitable
architecture for the access to parallel channels
Submission Slide 9 Roberta Fracchia (Motorola)