Effect of propagation delay and RTS packet recognition time on MACA

The authors analytically derive the throughput performance of the media access control (MAC) protocol MACA, which has become the prototype of options used in IEEE802.11 for reducing the effects of hidden terminals. This derivation indicates that the MACA throughput performance basically is affected by the propagation delay and RTS recognition time. Also, by comparing MACA with CSMA, which is a typical contention mode MAC protocol, the authors show that (1) if the RTS recognition time is sufficiently small, MACA has better performance than CSMA even in a network in which no hidden terminal exists, and (2) when relatively large data packets are transmitted and received, MACA functions effectively.