Opportunistic EBCS access mechanism for IEEE 802.11bc: a probabilistic approach

Abstract

With the growing demand for video applications, ensuring reliable broadcast services in Wireless Local Area Networks (WLANs) has become increasingly critical. Furthermore, digital video services are highly sensitive to network impairments due to timing constraints and video frame dependencies. This paper contributes a valuable theoretical and simulation framework for the design and implementation of the Wireless Broadcast Access Protocol (WBAP): an opportunistic broadcast access protocol designed to support Enhanced Broadcast Services (EBCS) recently introduced by the IEEE 802.11bc amendment. We construct a Markov model to capture the performance of WBAP in both saturated and unsaturated conditions. The analytical results are validated using a custom-made MATLAB simulator. Our findings show that WBAP effectively manages the coexistence of unicast and broadcast traffic, significantly enhancing network performance and reliability in terms of Quality of Service/Quality of Experience (QoS/QoE), particularly under high-load traffic conditions.