Achieving Fair Bandwidth Distribution in WiFi Networks: A Game Theoretical Approach

Abstract

Achieving fair bandwidth distribution among uplink and downlink ows in IEEE 802.11 infrastructure networks is a complex issue, due to the well-known features of the Distributed Coordination Function (DCF) which regulates the access to the shared medium. Indeed, the dynamic adaptation of the contention windows causes phenomena of short-term unfairness, while the use of homogeneous contention parameters among the contending nodes makes the aggregated downlink bandwidth equal to the uplink bandwidth of a single node. We propose a dynamic tuning of the contention parameters used by the nodes, based on simple network monitoring functionalities and rational strategies. Speci cally, we propose a game- theoretic analysis of such tuning, devised to guarantee a fair resource sharing among the nodes, while optimizing the per-node uploading and downloading bandwidth.