International Telemetering Conference Proceedings / October 18-21, 2004 / Town & Country Resort, San Diego, California / IEEE 802.11e is an amendment of the medium-access control (MAC) layer of the standard for wireless local area networking IEEE 802.11. The goal of 802.11e is to provide 802.11 networks with Quality of Service (QoS). 802.11 has three physical layers (PHY) of practical importance: 802.11b, 802.11a, and 802.11g. 802.11a and 802.11g provide data rates between 6 and 54 Mbps, and 802.11b provides data rates of 5.5 Mbps and 11 Mbps. However these data rates are not the actual throughput. The actual throughput that a user will experience will be lower. The throughput depends on both the PHY and MAC layers. It is important to estimate what exactly is the throughput when the physical layer is 802.11a, 802.11b, or 802.11g, and the MAC layer is 802.11e. In other words, how does providing QoS change the throughput for each of the three physical layers? In this paper we provide answers to this problem. Analytic formulae are derived. The maximum achievable throughput and minimum delay involved in data transfers are determined. The obtained results have further significance for the design of high-throughput wireless protocols.

Recent developments in nanotechnology have enabled the fabrication of nanomachines with very limited sensing, computation, communication, and action capabilities. The network of communicating nanomachines is envisaged as nanonetworks that are designed to accomplish complex tasks such as drug delivery and health monitoring. For the realization of future nanonetworks, it is essential to develop novel and efficient communication and networking paradigms. In this thesis, the first step towards designing a mobile ad hoc molecular nanonetwork (MAMNET) with electrochemical communication is taken. MAMNET consists of mobile nanomachines and infostations that share nanoscale information using electrochemical communication whenever they have a physical contact with each other. In MAMNET, the intermittent connectivity introduced by the mobility of nanomachines and infostations is a critical issue to be addressed. In this thesis, an analytical framework that incorporates the effect of mobility into the performance of electrochemical communication among nanomachines is presented. Using the analytical model, numerical analysis for the performance evaluation of MAMNET is obtained. Results reveal that MAMNET achieves adequately high throughput performance to enable frontier nanonetwork applications with sufficiently low communication delay.