QoS Signaling for Parameterized Traffic in IEEE 802.11e Wireless LANs

IEEE 802.11e Medium Access Control (MAC) is an emerging extension of the IEEE 802.11 Wireless Local Area Network (WLAN) standard to support Quality of Service (QoS). The IEEE 802.11e uses both centrally-controlled as well as contention-based channel access mechanisms to transfer data across the wireless medium. It also provides the mechanism to specify and negotiate the resource based on the user’s QoS requirement. This paper presents a MAC-level QoS signaling for IEEE 802.11e WLAN and addresses its interaction with higher layer signaling protocols including Resource ReSerVation Protocol (RSVP) and Subnet Bandwidth Manager (SBM). We also explain a novel way of setting up sidestream connections for direct station-to-station streaming within an 802.11e WLAN.