Performance Analysis of Weather’s Impact on Outdoor IEEE 802.11b/g Links Using Network Management Parameters

Some previous works concluded that weather conditions impact on the performance of outdoor IEEE 802.11b/g links. They show high correlation coefficients between the number of control frame errors and the weather conditions. However, these previous studies do not consider grouping weather conditions into ranges and it would provide very valuable information in this issue. Knowing the weather conditions ranges where the weathers’ impact is really significant would be very useful for future outdoor networks. Thus, we have carried out a deep study on an experimental IEEE 802.11b/g setup in order to extract real conclusions. It is composed of two outdoor radio links of different lengths transmitting traffic continuously. Results show that in spite of covering a lower distance, the short distance link is more susceptible to the weather conditions. It is due to the modulation scheme used in that case. Moreover, they show different correlation coefficients depending on the groupings of weather conditions.