Abstract-We analyze in this paper the fairness of the 802.11 DCF (Distributed Coordination Function) access method. Shortterm fairness is an important property of a MAC layer for obtaining short delays. We show that contrary to the common wisdom, a 802.11 cell with two hosts does not exhibit shortterm unfairness. Many papers considered 802.11 as short-term unfair by referring to a study of the Wavelan CSMA/CA access method [1]. The confusion comes from the extrapolation of its results to 802.11. Actually, these two access methods are very different: the Wavelan CSMA/CA access method performs exponential backoff when the channel is sensed busy, whereas 802.11 does the same only after a collision.We