Continuous Multi-Link Operation: A Contention-Free Mechanism for the Unlicensed Spectrum

TL;DR

This paper introduces ConMLO, a contention-free multi-link operation mechanism for unlicensed spectrum, ensuring continuous channel access and fairness, validated through real-world traffic data in crowded environments.

Contribution

It presents ConMLO, a novel multi-link operation method that guarantees continuous spectrum access without fairness loss, extending Wi-Fi 7 capabilities.

Findings

ConMLO guarantees continuous channel acquisition in crowded scenarios.

ConMLO maintains fairness comparable to legacy methods.

Effective in real-world, high-occupancy environments.

Abstract

This paper proposes a novel mechanism to enforce contention-free channel access in the unlicensed spectrum, as opposed to the traditional contention-based approach. To achieve this objective, we build on the Wi-Fi~7 multi-link operation (MLO) and define the means whereby independent channel access attempts are performed in all the addressable links to ensure one available channel/link is ready for transmission at all times, such that a sequence of continuous acquired channels can be maintained. We call this method continuous multi-link operation (ConMLO). In this work, we aim to verify the applicability of ConMLO, its ability to retain spectrum resources for a given duration of time, and its fairness with respect existing approaches, namely legacy single-link operation (SLO) and MLO. To this end, we use realistic data traffic measurements acquired in a crowded football stadium as an exemplary case of challenging spectrum occupation. Our results show that the proposed ConMLO can effectively guarantee continuous channel acquisition under different occupancy scenarios without compromising fairness of channel access compared to existing legacy modes.