International journal of Computing

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Techniques to Improve performance of VoIP Over 802.11e WLAN

Dr.B.P.Mallikarjunaswamy1,D. Ramesh2 ,B.R.Prakash3
1
Professor, Dept. of Computer Science and Engineering, Sri Siddhartha Institute of Technology, Tumkur
2
Research Scholar, Department of Computer Science and Engg., Kuvempu University, Shankargatta,
3
Faculty, Dept. of Master of Computer Applications, Sri Siddhartha Institute of Technology, Tumkur,
especially in public spaces. These motivations led us to
ABSTRACT
study the VoIP capacity in IEEE 802.11e WLAN and to
Voice over Internet Protocol is an important service investigate increasing this capacity by reducing VoIP
with strict quality of requirements in Wireless Local codec rate while maintaining an overall good quality.
Area Network (WLANs). The IEEE 802.11e Standard
2. VOIP SYSTEM OVERVIEW
has been introduced recently for providing Quality of
Service (QoS) capabilities in the emerging wireless This section introduces a short description of VoIP basic
local area networks. This 802.11e introduces a mechanisms and the E-Model used for objective
contention window based that is Enhanced Distribution assessment of audio quality.
Channel Access (EDCA) technique that provides a 2.1. VoIP Transmission Networks
prioritized traffic to guarantee minimum bandwidth
The commonly used VoIP codecs are G.711, G.729 and
needed for time critical applications. However this
G.723.1. The traditional sample-based VoIP encoder
EDCA technique resets statistically the contention
G.711 uses Pulse Code Modulation (PCM) to generate 8
window of the mobile station after each successful
bits samples per 0.125 ms, leading to a data rate of 64
transmission. This static behavior does not adapt to the
kb/s. Recent frame-based encoders can be used in order
network state hence reduces the network usage and
to provide drastic rate reduction (e.g., 8 kb/s for G.729,
results in bad performance and poor link utilization
5.3 and 6.3 kb/s for G.723.1). The reduced bandwidth
whenever the demand for link utilization increases. For
utilization is at the expense of additional complexity and
that purpose a new technique has been proposed for
encoding delay as well as slightly lower quality [2][3].
IEEE 802.11e wireless local area networks that take into
Further reduction in the data rate can be achieved by
account the network state before resetting the contention
means of Voice Activity Detection (VAD), in which
window. To improve the QoS of Voice over Internet
case no signal is encoded during silence periods. When
Protocol services we proposed a new traffic for VoIP.
silence suppression scheme is employed, the codecs
1. INTRODUCTION then operate in two states: a silent state at zero bit-rate
and an active state at the compressed bit-rate.
The current Quality of Service (QoS) standard for
Regardless of the state, the frame period and frame size
wireless networks from the widely-used 802.11e family
are still fixed. After the coding operation, the packetizer
is IEEE 802.11e, The scope of this standard is to
encapsulates a certain number of speech samples (for
enhance the existing 802.11 Media Access Control
G.711) or a certain number of frames (for G.729 and
(MAC) so as to improve and manage QoS, to expand
G.723.1) into packets of equal sizes. The protocol stack
support for LAN applications with QoS requirements
used to carry the real time voice packets is RTP over
and provide classes of service. Wireless VoIP, typically
UDP/IP. As the voice packets are sent over an IP
over 802.11 WLAN, is becoming increasingly popular,
network, they are subject to variable delays and network
but even further elevates the challenges of delay and
drops. Even if a lot of voice codecs can tolerate some
loss reduction. Degradation of speech quality caused by
small packet loss without severe degradation, voice
packet delay and loss of voice traffic is still one of
traffic has unacceptable performance if long delays are
critical technical barriers of the VoIP system.
incurred. It is recognized that the end-to-end delay has a
Furthermore, apart from these limitations WLANs will
great impact on the perceived quality of interactive
need to support a large number of concurrent VoIP
conversations with a threshold effect around 150 ms .
communications since VoIP is spreading rapidly

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 B.P.Mallikarjunaswamy,D. Ramesh ,B.R.Prakash| Techniques to Improve performance of VoIP Over
For intra-continental calls, the packet delay is on the
order of 30 ms and for inter-continental calls the delay
can be as large as 100 ms. The impact of delay on voice
communication quality varies significantly with the use.
For instance, long delays are not annoying in a cell
phone as in a regular wired phone because of the added
value of mobility.
2.2. E-model
Perceived voice quality is typically estimated by the
subjective Mean Opinion Score (MOS), an arithmetic
average of opinion score that ranges from 1 to 5.
Objective quality scores can be generated by comparing
the impaired voice signal with its original version such
as in Perceptual evaluation of speech quality (PESQ) .
However, PESQ do not consider the effect of delay on
voice communications and neither MOS nor PESQ can
be used for real-time on-line quality. The E-model is a
computational model for use in transmission planning,
hence a transmission rating model that can be used to
help ensure that users will be satisfied with end-to-end
transmission performance.
The model integrates in the rating value R, called
transmission rating factor (R-value), the impairment
factors that affect communication equipment, including
delay and low bit-rate codecs. These impairments are
computed based on a series of input parameters for
which default values and permitted ranges are specified.
These should be used if the corresponding impairment
situation occurs. The general formula is:
R=R0−Is−Id−Ie−eff+A
where:
R0= basic signal-to-noise ratio
Is= factor for impairments that are simultaneous
with voice transmission
Id= delay impairment factor
Ie-eff= packet-loss-dependent effective impairment
factor
A = advantage factor (system specific)
Since the computation of the rating factor R involves a
large number of parameters, complementary
recommendations and appendices have been proposed
by ITU-T, such as [G.108] and [G.113] that give the
values for these parameters for pre-determined
conditions for which the model has been calibrated.
3. WHY IEEE802.11E
The widespread of multimedia data and applications
transmission over wireless LAN has made it necessity to
a QoS support for the IEEE 802.11 standard. Therefore,
IEEE 802.11 task group has created a special version,
which is 802.11e, which adds a set of QoS enhancement
to the original 802.11 MAC[1]. The aim of QoS in
wireless networking is to provide priority including
channel bandwidth, controlled and bounded jitter and
delay (required by some real-time applications such as
IFRSA’s International Journal Of Computing|Vol2|issue 4|Oct 2012
802.11e WLAN
video streaming and VoIP), minimize the probability of
losing and dropping packets. However, providing
priority for specific stations to transmit does not mean
that the otherstations will be ignored[4] .
3.1. Overview of HCCA and EDCA
In the 802.11e standard, a super frame consists of two
phases: a contention period (CP) and a contention free
period (CFP). EDCA is used only in the CP while
HCCA can be used in both periods. Therefore a CP
consists of controlled access periods (CAP), which refer
to HCCA activity, alternating with EDCA activity.
HCCA is based on polling and is controlled by a hybrid
coordinator (located in the QAP). In order to be
included in the polling list of the HC, a QSTA must
send a QoS reservation request using a special QoS
management frame, and each individual traffic stream
(TS) needs one reservation request. The QoS
management frame contains traffic specification
(TSPEC) parameters. The mandatory TSPEC
parameters include the mean data rate of the
corresponding application, the MAC Service Data Unit
(MSDU) size, the maximum service interval (the
maximum time allowed between adjacent TXOPs
allocated to the same station) and the minimum PHY
rate (the minimum physical bit rate assumed by the
scheduler for calculating transmission time)[5].
Basically, each TS first sends a QoS request frame to
the QAP. Using these QoS requests, the QAP
determines first the minimum value of all the maximum
service intervals required by the different TSs that apply
for HCCA scheduling. Then it chooses the highest sub
multiple value of the 802.11e beacon interval duration
as the selected service interval (SI), which is less than
the minimum of all the maximum service intervals.
Thus, an 802.11e beacon interval is cut into several SIs
and QSTAs are polled accordingly during each selected
SI. EDCA defines a DCF-like random access to the
wireless channel through access categories (ACs). At
any node, the incoming traffic is mapped to one of the
four ACs[6]. Each AC executes an independent backoff
process to determine the time of transmission of its
frames. The backoff process is regulated by four
configurable parameters: minimum contention
window(CWmin), maximum contention window
(CWmax), arbitration inter frame space (AIFS), and
transmission opportunity (TXOP) limit.
3.2. Quality of service provisioning in IEEE
802.11e: the EDCA function
Like the 802.11 Distributed Coordination Function
(DCF), EDCA is based on the CSMA/CA scheme and
employs the concept of Inter Frame Space (IFS) as well
as the backoff mechanism; furthermore it introduces the
following innovations. � When an 802.11e station
seizes the channel, it is entitled to transmit one or more
frames for a time interval named Transmission
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 B.P.Mallikarjunaswamy,D. Ramesh ,B.R.Prakash| Techniques to Improve performance of VoIP Over
Opportunity (TXOP); a TXOP is characterized by a
maximum duration, called TXOP Limit. Various Access
Categories (ACs) are defined, each of which
corresponds to a different priority level and to a
different set of parameters to be used for contending the
channel. In particular, an 802.11e station operating
under the EDCA function includes up to four MAC
queues; each queue corresponds to a different AC and
represents a separate instance of the CSMA/CA
protocol. A queue employs the following parameters to
access the channel: (i) the Arbitration Inter Frame
Spacing (AIFS AC), similar to the DIFS used in DCF,
(ii) the Minimum and the Maximum Contention
Window (CWmin[AC], CWmax[AC]), (iii) and the
TXOP Limit[AC]. The higher the AC priority is, the
smaller the AIFS[AC], CWmin[AC] and
CWmax[AC]are. The larger the TXOP Limit[AC], the
greater the share of capacity of the AC. However, the
values of CWmin[AC] and CWmax[AC] have to be
carefully chosen so as to avoid high collision probability
among traffic flows belonging to the same AC, and the
value of AIFS must be at least as long as the DIFS
interval (the only exception is for the AP that can use an
AIFS 30 long). Within every 802.11e station, a
scheduler solves virtual collisions among the AC
queues, i.e., among the various CSMA/CA instances, by
always enabling the queue associated with the highest
priority to transmit[7][8].
3.3. Analysis of IEEE 802.11e QoS Enhancements
The original IEEE 802.11 standard specifies two
channel access mechanisms: a mandatory contention-
based distributed coordination function (DCF) and an
optional polling based point coordination function
(PCF). DCF provides a best effort service and is not
capable of providing differentiation and prioritization
based upon traffic type. While DCF may provide
satisfactory performance in delivering best-effort traffic,
it lacks the support for QoS requirements posed by real
time traffic, and especially VoIP which has stringent
delay requirements. These requirements make the DCF
scheme an infeasible option to support QoS for VoIP
traffic. PCF mode, with a centralized controller,
represent another promising alternative to providing
QoS in WLAN[9]. Nevertheless, studies on carrying
VoIP over WLAN in PCF mode in found that when the
number of stations in a basic service set (BSS) is large,
the polling overhead is high and results in excessive
end-to-end delay and that VoIP still get poor
performance under heavy load conditions. Thus, neither
DCF nor PCF presents sufficient functionality to
provide the QoS demanded by multimedia applications.
In WLANs, the physical layer's error rate is larger than
that of wired LAN and the challenges of the wireless
channel make physical layer data rate improvements
difficult to achieve. These reasons have led to the
IFRSA’s International Journal Of Computing|Vol2|issue 4|Oct 2012
802.11e WLAN
development of service differentiation based MAC
schemes that classify traffic types based on their relative
priorities. The IEEE 802.11e standard addresses the
shortcomings of the 802.11 standard, defines a superset
of features backward compatible with DCF/PCF and
introduces the Hybrid Coordination Function (HCF).
HCF has
B TXOP1 TXOP2 … EDCA … TXOP1 TXOP2 … EDCA B
TXOP TXOP
Fig. : IEEE 802.11e Superframe
two modes of operation: Enhanced Distributed
Coordinated Access (EDCA) and HCF Controlled
Channel Access (HCCA). EDCA inherits all the
contention scheme and parameters of the original
802.11 DCF and provides service differentiation
through prioritized access to the wireless medium.
Prioritization is realized through the introduction of four
Access Categories (ACs) each with its own transmit
queue and set of AC parameters. The differentiation in
priority between ACs is realized by setting different
values for the AC parameters which include the
arbitration inter frame spacing (AIFS) and minimum
contention window size (CWmin). With proper tuning
of these parameters, the performance of delay sensitive
multimedia traffic can be improved. In an infrastructure
network, the AP will again access to the medium with a
higher priority than other QoS Stations (QSTAs). Under
HCF the basic unit of allocation of the right to transmit
onto the wireless medium is the transmission
opportunity (TXOP). Each TXOP is defined by a
starting time and a defined
maximum length. The TXOP may be obtained by a
QSTA winning an instance of EDCA contention during
the CP, or by a non-AP QSTA receiving a QoS + CF-
Poll during the CP or CFP. With the HCCA, a hybrid
coordinator (HC) allocates transmission opportunities
(TXOPs) to wireless STAs by polling, so as to allow
them contention-free transfers of data, based on QoS
policies. QSTAs may obtain TXOPs using one or both
of the channel access mechanisms. An HC generates an
alternation of CFP and CP, the sum of the two periods
forms the “superframe” (SF). In addition, contrary to
DCF, QSTAs can be polled during theCP in periods
called Controlled Access Periods (CAPs). The duration
of TXOPs allocated to each QSTA is determined by the
HC schedular according to the requested QoS
parameters. It is also possible to change the SF length
since beacons carry a parameter indicating the SF
length. Due to the service differentiation, the real-time
traffic gets a higher priority in winning channel
contention under 802.11e and evidently provides a
better performance as compared to the basic 802.11
MAC scheme.
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 B.P.Mallikarjunaswamy,D. Ramesh ,B.R.Prakash| Techniques to Improve performance of VoIP Over
3.4. Problems on EDCA
As described above, EDCA provides prioritized QoS for
different ACs. However EDCA does not take into
consideration the QoS of traffics which belong to the
same AC. The packet collision probability increases as
the number of calls increases due to simultaneous
transmission. Additionally the delay tends to increase if
more than one STA are in backoff states. These
problems result in voice quality degradation. Therefore,
it is necessary to restrict the number of VoIP calls over
a WLAN system[10][11][12]. Instead of EDCA,
IEEE802.11e also provides the polling based MAC
protocol called Hybrid coordination function Controlled
Channel Access (HCCA). However HCCA proposes no
concrete scheduling algorithms. In addition, collision of
polling packets from more than one access point (AP)
may always occur in multiple-cell environment because
VoIP application generates packets to transmit at a
constant interval.
4. PROPOSED TECHNIQUES
4.1. Overview of Proposed Scheme
We propose a MAC protocol to provide effective QoS
guarantees for VoIP over WLAN. Our proposed
protocol follows three policies: (1) No modification of
access points, (2) No hardware (H/W) modification of
VoIP terminals, and (3) Maintain backward
compatibility. The first policy enables users to
implement the proposed method on existing APs. The
second one minimizes the impact on implementing the
proposed method in VoIP terminals. The third one
prevents the proposed method from blocking
communications among terminals that are equipped
with only conventional techniques. After each STA
connects to AP, each STA decides its own transmission
timing using the distributed transmission scheduling.
We call this stage the observation phase. After that, the
scheduled transmission phase follows. In the scheduled
transmission phase, each STA transmits packets using
the dynamic priority setting. It is also possible to re-
schedule transmission timing if necessary. Our proposed
techniques are premised on APs and STAs which host
Unscheduled Automatic Power Save Delivery (U-
APSD), which is defined in the IEEE802.11e. The U-
APSD is intermittent reception mechanism that AP
transmits a packet upon receiving a packet from an
STA.
4.2. Distributed Transmission Scheduling
Because VoIP application generates packets to transmit
at a constant interval, each STA has only to decide a
schedule in a certain VoIP codec period. Each STA in
single-cell environment proceeds as follows. First of
all, in order to detect other STAs, each STA observes
down-link packets from AP and reads the destination
address field in the MAC header. This enables each
IFRSA’s International Journal Of Computing|Vol2|issue 4|Oct 2012
802.11e WLAN
STA to recognize others. Secondly, each STA makes a
list of MAC addresses of STAs which belong to the
same AP[13]. The final step in this phase is to sort the
MAC addresses in ascending order and make a
scheduling table. This enable all the STAs in the same
cell to share a scheduling table. During this phase, STAs
transmit packets using EDCA.
4.3. Dynamic Priority Setting
After the scheduling table is made, each STA creates a
virtual slot periodically. Each STA sets the priority of
its virtual slot according to the scheduling table.
Specifically, each STA dynamically changes its AIFSN,
CWmin and CWmax. The virtual slot of a VoIP STA is
shifted to the next VoIP STA in the length of the time
required for transmission of up-link and down-link
packets[14]. Moreover, the duration of a virtual slot is
longer than the length of the time required for
transmission of up-link and down-link packets.
Therefore, the virtual slot of a VoIP STA partially
overlaps with that of the next STA. This leads to
flexible scheduling which prevents the scheduled
sequences from collapsing due to interrupts from the
previous VoIP STA or STA equipped only with
conventional techniques. If the scheduled sequences
collapse due to join of new STA, each STA adopts any
of the following methods. One way is for the new STA
to transmit a re-scheduling request packet in a broadcast
manner. The other is for any STA connected already to
detect frequent failures of reception of an
acknowledgement (ACK) from AP and then transmit a
re-scheduling request packet in a broadcast manner.
Figure 2. Multiple-cell environment
4.4. Application to Multiple-Cell Environment
The number of the available frequency channels is very
limited in IEEE802.11 WLAN. This is why it is
inevitable that more than one cell with the same
frequency channel will overlap. In this section we
extend the proposed techniques to implement the
distributed transmission scheduling for multiple-cell
environment. In Figure 2. AP1 and AP2 use the same
frequency. VoIP A, B and C are connected to AP1 and
VoIP D and E are connected to AP2 and VoIP C lies in
the overlapping area of AP1 and AP2. There is a
possibility that the virtual slot of VoIP C will overlap
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 B.P.Mallikarjunaswamy,D. Ramesh ,B.R.Prakash| Techniques to Improve performance of VoIP Over
with that of VoIP D and E. This leads to packet collision
between VoIP C and VoIP D/E due to the transmission
at the same time. Hence the virtual slots of the VoIP [6]
STAs in an overlapping area need to be set in different
timing from those of VoIP STAs in not only the same
cell but also neighbor cells. At the beginning, each VoIP
STA behaves in the manner and makes the scheduling
table of VoIP STAs which belong to the same AP. After [7]
that, each VoIP STA determines if packets from other
APs are being received. This enables VoIP C to find
itself in an overlapping area[15][16]. VoIP C searches
the virtual slots which are not occupied by the VoIP D/E
in neighbors cell. Then VoIP C transmits a slot request
packet including the virtual slot number which is not [8]
occupied by the VoIP D/E in a broadcast manner. This
leads for VoIP A and B to receive the necessary
information and make the scheduling table under the
multiple-cell environment.
[9]
5. CONCLUSIONS
This paper presented a MAC protocol that provides
effective QoS for VoIP over WLAN. The characteristics [10]
of our proposed protocol are (1) No modification of
access points, (2) No H/W modification of VoIP STAs [11]
and (3) Backward compatibility in order to inimize the
costs of development and introduction.. As future
works, we will implement our proposed protocol in a [12]
testbed and evaluate its performance
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