On the impact of configuration of access points on the performance of wireless networks

Wireless technologies are advancing rapidly, providing ubiquitous communication to diverse user communities. Businesses are seeking wireless networks for a wide range of application domains, which fuels the need for higher data rates and better performance levels. The wireless industry has made significant progress in overcoming performance constraints that hindered the widespread adoption of wireless technologies. Extensive research on architectures and their implementation details has brought tremendous advancements and improvements in wireless capabilities. In this paper, we show how we can improve the performance of wireless networks by employing various configuration techniques. We deal with two configuration issues, the overlapping channel problem and the node assignment problem, which specifically affect the performance of Wireless Infrastructure networks. This paper aims at proposing channel assignment techniques which minimize the channel interferences between access points and presents node assignment patterns which minimize congestion and contention at the access point by balancing traffic load. This study will help wireless users choose and adopt a suitable wireless technology based on their application's QoS requirements, infrastructure available and wireless features needed.