Abstract—We analyze the performance of the IEEE 802.11b
wireless local area networks. We have observed that when some
mobile hosts use a lower bit rate than the others, the performance
of all hosts is considerably degraded. Such a situation is a
common case in wireless local area networks in which a host far
away from an Access Point is subject to important signal fading
and interference. To cope with this problem, the host changes its
modulation type, which degrades its bit rate to some lower value.
Typically, 802.11b products degrade the bit rate from 11 Mb/s to
5.5, 2, or 1 Mb/s when repeated unsuccessful frame transmissions
are detected. In such a case, a host transmitting for example at 1
Mb/s reduces the throughput of all other hosts transmitting at 11
Mb/s to a low value below 1 Mb/s. The basic CSMA/CA channel
access method is at the root of this anomaly: it guarantees an
equal long term channel access probability to all hosts. When
one host captures the channel for a long time because its bit
rate is low, it penalizes other hosts that use the higher rate. We
analyze the anomaly theoretically by deriving simple expressions
for the useful throughput, validate them by means of simulation,
and compare with several performance measurements.