WiFi Transmit Power and its Effect on Co-Channel Interference

The mass adoption of WiFi (IEEE 802.11) technology has increased numbers of devices simultaneously attempting to use high-bandwidth applications such as video streaming in a finite portion of the frequency spectrum. These increasing numbers can be seen in the deployment of highly-dense wireless environments in which performance can be affected due to the intensification of challenges such as co-channel interference (CCI). There are mechanisms in place to try to avoid sources of interference from non-WiFi devices. Still, CCI caused by legitimate WiFi traffic can be equally or even more disruptive, and also though some tools and protocols try to address CCI, these are no longer sufficient for this type of environment. Therefore, this paper investigates the effect of transmit power and direction have on CCI in a high-density environment consisting of multiple access points (APs) and multiple clients. We suggest improvements on publicly- existing documented power control algorithms and techniques by proposing a cooperative approach consisting of the incorporation of feedback from the receiver to the transmitter to allow it to reduce power level where possible, which will minimize the range of CCI for near clients without compromising coverage for the most distant ones.