On the Fundamental Relationship Determining the Capacity of Static and Mobile Wireless Networks

TL;DR

This paper identifies the core factors that determine the capacity of static and mobile wireless networks, providing a unified understanding of how parameters like simultaneous transmissions and link capacity influence network performance.

Contribution

It establishes a fundamental relationship linking network capacity to key parameters, enhancing understanding of static, mobile, and hybrid network capacities.

Findings

Capacity is determined by simultaneous transmissions, link capacity, and transmission count.

The relationship explains existing capacity results for various network types.

Provides insights into multicast capacity and network design.

Abstract

Studying the capacity of wireless multi-hop networks is an important problem and extensive research has been done in the area. In this letter, we sift through various capacity-impacting parameters and show that the capacity of both static and mobile networks is fundamentally determined by the average number of simultaneous transmissions, the link capacity and the average number of transmissions required to deliver a packet to its destination. We then use this result to explain and help to better understand existing results on the capacities of static networks, mobile networks and hybrid networks and the multicast capacity.