Performance Evaluation of 802.11 Standards Operating in TVWS and Higher Frequencies under Realistic Conditions

The digital switch-over has triggered the development of new wireless standards which are expected to use unoccupied TV channels known as TV white space. Wi-Fi like systems in TVWS are foreseen as cost effective high data rate communication systems which might provide significant coverage compared to existing 802.11 Wi-Fi systems. This paper presents a quantitative analysis of downlink throughput of three 802.11 standards, namely 802.11af in the TV band, 802.11g in the 2.4GHz band and 802.11p in the 5.9GHz band. The study is the first to compare the three standards considering realistic conditions such as availability of TV channels, realistic modelling of wireless channels and considering the effect of AP and DVB-T interference in rural and urban environments in the United Kingdom. We have shown that the overall benefit of operation in TVWS is mainly governed by the AP density, number of available TV channels and the AP transmission power.