Spatial fairness in linear wireless multi-access networks

TL;DR

This paper addresses throughput unfairness in linear wireless networks by adapting CSMA activation rates based on local neighborhood size, achieving fairness and maintaining high throughput in both saturated and non-saturated conditions.

Contribution

It introduces a method to eliminate unfairness in linear networks by adjusting node activation rates according to neighbor count, improving fairness without sacrificing throughput.

Findings

Unfairness is caused by local neighborhood differences.

Adaptive activation rates can fully remove unfairness.

The approach performs well in both saturated and non-saturated scenarios.

Abstract

Multi-access networks may exhibit severe unfairness in throughput. Recent studies show that this unfairness is due to local differences in the neighborhood structure: Nodes with less neighbors receive better access. We study the unfairness in saturated linear networks, and adapt the multi-access CSMA protocol to remove the unfairness completely, by choosing the activation rates of nodes appropriately as a function of the number of neighbors. We then investigate the consequences of this choice of activation rates on the network-average saturated throughput, and we show that these rates perform well in a non-saturated setting.