On the capacity of oblivious powers

Abstract

We consider the problem of capacity in wireless networks in the physical model. The goal of this paper is to compare different power assignments and models from the perspective of this problem. We show a family of power assignments, including the mean power assignment, which yield larger capacity than uniform and linear power assignments, for each network instance. On the other hand, uniform and linear power assignments are not worse (in the same sense) than any power assignment, which is decreasing as a function of link-length, or increasing faster than linear power assignment. We also compare the directed and bidirectional communication models, and show upper and lower bounds on the gap between optimal capacities using any power assignment in these communication models. © 2012 Springer-Verlag.