Fairness Improvement in Internet of Things Networks implemented by IEEE 802.11ah Standard

Abstract

Fair throughput provisioning is a major issue in the internet of things (IoT) networks with large coverage area, where the stations are distributed in long distances from the access points (AP). The stations experience different path-loss, consequently different throughput. In this paper, we suggest a grouping method to maintain fairness among the stations of an IoT network implemented by IEEE 802.11ah standard over a wide geographical region. The de facto standard assigns a time slot of each frame portion to each randomly chosen group of stations to contend. To enhance fairness, we propose a distance-based grouping method that separates the stations based on their distance from the AP. Moreover, we find the optimal distance for grouping and the optimum proportion of time slots assigned to each group that maximize fairness. The simulation results indicate that the fairness of the proposed method outperforms the one’s of the de facto standard.