Performance evaluation of heterogeneous wireless networks considering competing objectives and viewpoints

Abstract

Metrics, objectives and point of view are crucial to designing a high performance wireless network. A high performance network is different from one user to the next. Network design is often concerned with optimizing traditional metrics such as packet delivery ratio, throughput and delay. However, a user is interested in a trade-off between these, and many more metrics such as cost in order to have a good experience depending on their application. Furthermore, operators who run these networks are interested in meeting the users' requirements in order to maintain a good reputation. Operators are also interested in maximizing revenue and profit since most networks are commercial enterprises. With these competing interests in mind, this paper proposes a network model for heterogeneous wireless networks which may be used to make informed decisions for handover, routing, scheduling and other common network functions which often depend on traditional, limited metrics. Experimental evidence for these shortcomings is provided, using 802.11 Wi-Fi as an example case. A simple Pareto method for addressing the shortcomings of the traditional approach is given as a basis for future work which may be expanded to more complicated HWNs.