Collisions are a main cause of throughput degradation in wireless local area networks. The current contention mechanism used in the IEEE 802.11 networks is called carrier sense multiple access with collision avoidance (CSMA CA). It uses a binary exponential backoff technique to randomize each contender attempt of transmitting, effectively reducing the collision probability. Nevertheless, CSMA CA relies on a random backoff that while effective and fully decentralized, in principle is unable to completely eliminate collisions, therefore degrading the network throughput as more contenders attempt to share the channel. To overcome these situations, carrier sense multiple access with enhanced collision avoidance (CSMA ECA) is able to create a collision-free schedule in a fully decentralized manner using a deterministic backoff after successful transmissions. Hysteresis and fair share are two extensions of CSMA ECA to support a large number of contenders in a collision-free schedule. CSMA ECA offers better throughput than CSMA CA and short-term throughput fairness. This paper describes CSMA ECA and its extensions. In addition, it provides the first evaluation results of CSMA ECA with non-saturated traffic, channel errors, and its performance when coexisting with CSMA CA nodes. Furthermore, it describes the effects of imperfect clocks over CSMA ECA and presents a mechanism to leverage the impact of channel errors and the addition withdrawal of nodes over collision-free schedules. Finally, the experimental results on throughput and lost frames from a CSMA ECA implementation using commercial hardware and open-source firmware are presented.
 This paper proposes a semi-random backoff (SRB) method that enables resource reservation in contention-based wireless LANs. The proposed SRB is fundamentally different from traditional random backoff methods because it provides an easy migration path from random backoffs to deterministic slot assignments. The central idea of the SRB is for the wireless station to set its backoff counter to a deterministic value upon a successful packet transmission. This deterministic value will allow the station to reuse the time-slot in consecutive backoff cycles. When multiple stations with successful packet transmissions reuse their respective time-slots, the collision probability is reduced, and the channel achieves the equivalence of resource reservation. In case of a failed packet transmission, a station will revert to the standard random backoff method and probe for a new available time-slot. The proposed SRB method can be readily applied to both 802.11 DCF and 802.11e EDCA networks with minimum modification to the existing DCF EDCA implementations. Theoretical analysis and simulation results validate the superior performance of the SRB for small-scale and heavily loaded wireless LANs. When combined with an adaptive mechanism and a persistent backoff process, SRB can also be effective for large-scale and lightly loaded wireless networks. The use of the unlicensed spectrum by LTE networks (LTE-U or LAA-LTE) is being considered by mobile operators in order to satisfy increasing traffic demands and to make better use of the licensed spectrum. However, coexistence issues arise when LTE-U coverage overlaps with other technologies currently operating in unlicensed bands, in particular WiFi. Since LTE uses a TDMA OFDMA scheduled approach, coexisting WiFi networks may face starvation if the channel is fully occupied by LTE-U transmissions. In this paper we derive a novel proportional fair allocation scheme that ensures fair coexistence between LTE-U and WiFi. Importantly, we find that the proportional fair allocation is qualitatively different from previously consideredWiFi-only settings and that since the resulting allocation requires only quite limited knowledge of network parameters it is potentially easy to implement in practice, without the need for message-passing between heterogeneous networks.