18 CS 2204
COMPUTER NETWORKS AND SECURITY
© 2019-20 KL University – The contents of this presentation are an intellectual and copyrighted property of KL University. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED 1
Session- 17
WLAN RTS and CTS
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Now, the node A starts to send something to B and C doesn’t receive this
transmission.
Now C also wants to send data to B and senses the carrier. As it senses it to
be free, it also starts sending to B.
Hidden terminal problem occurs when two nodes that are outside each
other’s range performs simultaneous transmission to a node that is within the
range of each of them resulting in a collision. That means the data from both
parties A and C will be lost during the collision.
Hidden nodes mean increased probability of collision at receiver end.
One solution to avoid this is to have the channel sensing range much greater
than the receiving range. Another solution is to use the Multiple Access with
Collision Avoidance (MACA).
© 2019-20 KL University – The contents of this presentation are an intellectual and copyrighted property of KL University. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
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Consider the same above diagram. Here imagine a situation wherein the B node is currently sending some data to
node A.
Now the other node C which is right now free want to send data to some node D(not in diag) which is outside the
range of A and B.
Now before starting transmission it senses the carrier and realizes that the carrier is busy (due to interference of B’s
signal).
Hence, the C node postpones the transmission to D until it detects the medium to be idle. However such a wait was
un-necessary as A was outside the interference range of C.
Also a collision at B will be a weak enough to be unable to penetrate into C.
Exposed terminal problem occurs when the node is within the range of a node that is transmitting and it cannot be
transmitted to any node.
Exposed node means denied channel access unnecessarily which ultimately results in under-utilization of bandwidth
resources. It also results in wastage of time-resource.
© 2019-20 KL University – The contents of this presentation are an intellectual and copyrighted property of KL University. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
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RTS/CTS (Request to Send / Clear to Send)
is the optional mechanism used by the 802.11 wireless networking protocol to reduce
frame collisions introduced by the hidden node problem and exposed node problem
© 2019-20 KL University – The contents of this presentation are an intellectual and copyrighted property of KL University. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
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CSMA/CA
We need to avoid collisions on wireless networks because they cannot be detected. Carrier sense multiple access with collision
avoidance (CSMA/CA) was invented for this network.
Collisions are avoided through the use of CSMA/CA's 3 strategies:
1) the Interframe space,
2) the contention window, and
3) acknowledgments,
CSMA/CA
Interframe Space [IFS] :-
Collisions are avoided by deferring transmission even if the channel is found idle.
When an idle channel is found, the station does not send immediately. It waits for a period of time called the interframe
space or IFS. Even though the channel may appear idle when it is sensed, a distant station may have already started
transmitting.
The distant station's signal has not yet reached this station. The IFS time allows the front of the transmitted signal by the
distant station to reach this station. If after the IFS time the channel is still idle, the station can send, but it still needs to
wait a time equal to the contention time. The IFS variable can also be used to prioritize stations or frame types. For
example, a station that is assigned shorter IFS has a higher priority.
In CSMA/CA, the IFS can also be used to define the priority of a station or a frame.
CSMA/CA
Contention Window:-
The contention window is an amount of time divided into slots.
A station that is ready to send chooses a random number of slots as its wait time. The number of slots in the window
changes according to the binary exponential back-off strategy.
This means that it is set to one slot the first time and then doubles each time the station cannot detect an idle channel
after the IFS time. This is very similar to the p-persistent method except that a random outcome defines the number of
slots taken by the waiting station.
One interesting point about the contention window is that the station needs to sense the channel after each time slot.
However, if the station finds the channel busy, it does not restart the process; it just stops the timer and restarts it when
the channel is sensed as idle. This gives priority to the station with the longest waiting time.
In CSMA/CA, if the station finds the channel busy:-
it does not restart the timer of the contention window;
it stops the timer and restarts it when the channel becomes idle.
CSMA/CA
Acknowledgment:-
With all these precautions, there still may be a collision resulting in destroyed data. In addition, the data may be corrupted
during the transmission.
The positive acknowledgment and the time-out timer can help guarantee that the receiver has received the frame.
CSMA/CA
Procedure of CSMA/CA
Note that the channel needs to be sensed before and after the IFS. The channel also needs to be sensed during the
contention time.
For each time slot of the contention window, the channel is sensed. If it is found idle, the timer continues; if the channel is
found busy, the timer is stopped and continues after the timer becomes idle again.
CSMA/CA
Collision Free Protocols
The basic bit-map protocol.
Collision Free Protocols
The binary countdown protocol. A dash indicates silence.
Random Access
Any Queries ?
