Modelling machine type communication in IEEE 802.11ah networks

Wi-Fi was originally designed to provide broadband wireless Internet access for devices which generate rather heavy streams. And Wi-Fi succeeded. The coming revolution of the Internet of Things with myriads of autonomous devices and machine type communications (MTC) traffic raises a question: can the Wi-Fi success story be repeated in the area of MTC? Started in 2010, IEEE 802.11 Task Group ah (TGah) has developed a draft amendment to the IEEE 802.11 standard, adapting Wi-Fi for MTC requirements. The performance of novel channel access enhancements in MTC scenarios can hardly be studied with models from Bianchi's clan, which typically assume that traffic load does not change with time. This paper contributes with a pioneer analytical approach to study Wi-Fi-based MTC, which can be used to investigate and customize many mechanisms developed by TGah.