A case for application aware channel access in wireless networks

ABSTRACT

The increasing reliance of users on wireless networks for Internet connectivity has posed two significant challenges for mobile networking research. The first challenge is to provide high quality of service for interactive real-time applications such as VoIP and video conferencing. The second challenge is to reduce the energy consumption of mobile devices and improve battery life. Past research has focused on separately addressing these seemingly conflicting goals in distributed medium access based wireless networks. Contrary to the traditional tiered networking approach, we argue that an application aware approach to medium access and power saving has the potential to significantly improve the performance of real-time applications and conserve battery power on mobile devices. As a proof of concept, we present the design and implementation of Rendezvous - an application aware MAC protocol. Rendezvous uses short term dynamic channel reservations to achieve higher quality of service and increased power saving opportunities for mobile devices running VoIP and real-time video applications. A preliminary evaluation from our testbed implementation reveals promising results, motivating the need and opportunity for future research in the direction of application awareness at lower layers of the networking stack.

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INDEX TERMS

Primary Classification:
  C. Computer Systems Organization
  C.2 COMPUTER-COMMUNICATION NETWORKS

Additional Classification:
  C. Computer Systems Organization
  C.2 COMPUTER-COMMUNICATION NETWORKS
      C.2.5 Local and Wide-Area Networks

General Terms:
Design, Performance

Keywords:
application awareness, medium access, wireless networks