Packet Collison Avoidance

The name of the pictureThe name of the pictureThe name of the pictureClash Royale CLAN TAG#URR8PPP











up vote
5
down vote

favorite












If a wireless network has collision avoidance, how comes the network slows down if more clients connect to it?







share|improve this question


























    up vote
    5
    down vote

    favorite












    If a wireless network has collision avoidance, how comes the network slows down if more clients connect to it?







    share|improve this question
























      up vote
      5
      down vote

      favorite









      up vote
      5
      down vote

      favorite











      If a wireless network has collision avoidance, how comes the network slows down if more clients connect to it?







      share|improve this question














      If a wireless network has collision avoidance, how comes the network slows down if more clients connect to it?









      share|improve this question













      share|improve this question




      share|improve this question








      edited Aug 13 at 15:04

























      asked Aug 6 at 13:42









      Leon185

      265




      265




















          4 Answers
          4






          active

          oldest

          votes

















          up vote
          7
          down vote













          A wireless network is only a single, shared medium with a limited total bandwidth. The more clients compete for bandwidth the smaller each slice gets.



          Additionally, the simple presence of clients consumes bandwidth = air time. It's not much per client but it sums up.



          Also, more clients also mean more potential senders, so that collisions become more likely. They're generally tried to be avoided but that can't be accomplished 100%. Each collision means wasted bandwidth for the partial transmission, the jam time (so that everybody hears the collision) and the random retransmission pause (to avoid the next collision).



          Finally, spreading a number of wireless nodes over a larger area makes the hidden station problem more apparent where a potential sender can't hear that another sender is already transmitting, making a collision hard to avoid.






          share|improve this answer



























            up vote
            6
            down vote













            Because everyone is competing for airtime. It's the same reason traffic slows down on a highway as more cars travel on it.



            BTW 802.11 uses CDMA/CA That's collision avoidance, not collision detection (Ethernet).






            share|improve this answer




















            • They are also competing for the wired bandwidth available on the connection between the access point and the switch or other device that the AP is connected to.
              – Todd Wilcox
              Aug 7 at 14:19

















            up vote
            5
            down vote














            If a wireless network has collision detection and avoidance, how comes the network slows down if more clients connect to it?




            To begin with I wanted to note that 802.11 makes use of collision avoidance, but not detection. These are two entirely different processes.



            As for why an 802.11 network slows down if there are more clients, there are two primary reasons.



            First, there is an increase in the amount of management traffic when you have more clients. One example is that each client will be sending out periodic probe requests which take up air time and may cause the AP to respond with a probe response (also taking up air time). Clients do this to determine if they should roam to a different AP on the same network or to a different network based on changing conditions.



            Another example is that many clients will send frames informing the network that they are "sleeping" or entering a power save mode. This lets the AP know to hold onto frames for the client until a designated time when the client will wake up to check for traffic. While this may seem a bit wasteful, it is actually more efficient in general as it prevents the AP from sending and resending a frame for a sleeping client. However, either way, some air time is used.



            Second, as others have also pointed out, there are simply more collisions. CA does provide a framework of rules to help avoid collisions, but they can still occur (afterall, it isn't collision elimination, right?). There are a number of factors here, but one of the biggest is the more clients on the network, the greater the chance of having a hidden node issue (or more than one). This is when you have two clients that are typically (but not always) on opposite sides of an AP's coverage zone, such that they can hear the AP but not the other client.



            Since someone else brought up the traffic analogy, there are rules of the road which help with collision avoidance (i.e. stay in your lane, use of turn signals, etc). Generally speaking even when everyone follows the rules, accidents still happen at times. However, the chances of an accident are far less when yours is the only car on the road than when the road is packed with hundreds of cars.






            share|improve this answer



























              up vote
              2
              down vote













              Straight from Wikipedia:




              Collision Avoidance: if another node was heard, we wait for a period of time (usually random) for the node to stop transmitting before listening again for a free communications channel.







              share|improve this answer




















                Your Answer







                StackExchange.ready(function()
                var channelOptions =
                tags: "".split(" "),
                id: "496"
                ;
                initTagRenderer("".split(" "), "".split(" "), channelOptions);

                StackExchange.using("externalEditor", function()
                // Have to fire editor after snippets, if snippets enabled
                if (StackExchange.settings.snippets.snippetsEnabled)
                StackExchange.using("snippets", function()
                createEditor();
                );

                else
                createEditor();

                );

                function createEditor()
                StackExchange.prepareEditor(
                heartbeatType: 'answer',
                convertImagesToLinks: false,
                noModals: false,
                showLowRepImageUploadWarning: true,
                reputationToPostImages: null,
                bindNavPrevention: true,
                postfix: "",
                noCode: true, onDemand: true,
                discardSelector: ".discard-answer"
                ,immediatelyShowMarkdownHelp:true
                );



                );








                 

                draft saved


                draft discarded


















                StackExchange.ready(
                function ()
                StackExchange.openid.initPostLogin('.new-post-login', 'https%3a%2f%2fnetworkengineering.stackexchange.com%2fquestions%2f52340%2fpacket-collison-avoidance%23new-answer', 'question_page');

                );

                Post as a guest






























                4 Answers
                4






                active

                oldest

                votes








                4 Answers
                4






                active

                oldest

                votes









                active

                oldest

                votes






                active

                oldest

                votes








                up vote
                7
                down vote













                A wireless network is only a single, shared medium with a limited total bandwidth. The more clients compete for bandwidth the smaller each slice gets.



                Additionally, the simple presence of clients consumes bandwidth = air time. It's not much per client but it sums up.



                Also, more clients also mean more potential senders, so that collisions become more likely. They're generally tried to be avoided but that can't be accomplished 100%. Each collision means wasted bandwidth for the partial transmission, the jam time (so that everybody hears the collision) and the random retransmission pause (to avoid the next collision).



                Finally, spreading a number of wireless nodes over a larger area makes the hidden station problem more apparent where a potential sender can't hear that another sender is already transmitting, making a collision hard to avoid.






                share|improve this answer
























                  up vote
                  7
                  down vote













                  A wireless network is only a single, shared medium with a limited total bandwidth. The more clients compete for bandwidth the smaller each slice gets.



                  Additionally, the simple presence of clients consumes bandwidth = air time. It's not much per client but it sums up.



                  Also, more clients also mean more potential senders, so that collisions become more likely. They're generally tried to be avoided but that can't be accomplished 100%. Each collision means wasted bandwidth for the partial transmission, the jam time (so that everybody hears the collision) and the random retransmission pause (to avoid the next collision).



                  Finally, spreading a number of wireless nodes over a larger area makes the hidden station problem more apparent where a potential sender can't hear that another sender is already transmitting, making a collision hard to avoid.






                  share|improve this answer






















                    up vote
                    7
                    down vote










                    up vote
                    7
                    down vote









                    A wireless network is only a single, shared medium with a limited total bandwidth. The more clients compete for bandwidth the smaller each slice gets.



                    Additionally, the simple presence of clients consumes bandwidth = air time. It's not much per client but it sums up.



                    Also, more clients also mean more potential senders, so that collisions become more likely. They're generally tried to be avoided but that can't be accomplished 100%. Each collision means wasted bandwidth for the partial transmission, the jam time (so that everybody hears the collision) and the random retransmission pause (to avoid the next collision).



                    Finally, spreading a number of wireless nodes over a larger area makes the hidden station problem more apparent where a potential sender can't hear that another sender is already transmitting, making a collision hard to avoid.






                    share|improve this answer












                    A wireless network is only a single, shared medium with a limited total bandwidth. The more clients compete for bandwidth the smaller each slice gets.



                    Additionally, the simple presence of clients consumes bandwidth = air time. It's not much per client but it sums up.



                    Also, more clients also mean more potential senders, so that collisions become more likely. They're generally tried to be avoided but that can't be accomplished 100%. Each collision means wasted bandwidth for the partial transmission, the jam time (so that everybody hears the collision) and the random retransmission pause (to avoid the next collision).



                    Finally, spreading a number of wireless nodes over a larger area makes the hidden station problem more apparent where a potential sender can't hear that another sender is already transmitting, making a collision hard to avoid.







                    share|improve this answer












                    share|improve this answer



                    share|improve this answer










                    answered Aug 6 at 19:14









                    Zac67

                    18.9k21047




                    18.9k21047




















                        up vote
                        6
                        down vote













                        Because everyone is competing for airtime. It's the same reason traffic slows down on a highway as more cars travel on it.



                        BTW 802.11 uses CDMA/CA That's collision avoidance, not collision detection (Ethernet).






                        share|improve this answer




















                        • They are also competing for the wired bandwidth available on the connection between the access point and the switch or other device that the AP is connected to.
                          – Todd Wilcox
                          Aug 7 at 14:19














                        up vote
                        6
                        down vote













                        Because everyone is competing for airtime. It's the same reason traffic slows down on a highway as more cars travel on it.



                        BTW 802.11 uses CDMA/CA That's collision avoidance, not collision detection (Ethernet).






                        share|improve this answer




















                        • They are also competing for the wired bandwidth available on the connection between the access point and the switch or other device that the AP is connected to.
                          – Todd Wilcox
                          Aug 7 at 14:19












                        up vote
                        6
                        down vote










                        up vote
                        6
                        down vote









                        Because everyone is competing for airtime. It's the same reason traffic slows down on a highway as more cars travel on it.



                        BTW 802.11 uses CDMA/CA That's collision avoidance, not collision detection (Ethernet).






                        share|improve this answer












                        Because everyone is competing for airtime. It's the same reason traffic slows down on a highway as more cars travel on it.



                        BTW 802.11 uses CDMA/CA That's collision avoidance, not collision detection (Ethernet).







                        share|improve this answer












                        share|improve this answer



                        share|improve this answer










                        answered Aug 6 at 14:35









                        Ron Trunk

                        31.1k22667




                        31.1k22667











                        • They are also competing for the wired bandwidth available on the connection between the access point and the switch or other device that the AP is connected to.
                          – Todd Wilcox
                          Aug 7 at 14:19
















                        • They are also competing for the wired bandwidth available on the connection between the access point and the switch or other device that the AP is connected to.
                          – Todd Wilcox
                          Aug 7 at 14:19















                        They are also competing for the wired bandwidth available on the connection between the access point and the switch or other device that the AP is connected to.
                        – Todd Wilcox
                        Aug 7 at 14:19




                        They are also competing for the wired bandwidth available on the connection between the access point and the switch or other device that the AP is connected to.
                        – Todd Wilcox
                        Aug 7 at 14:19










                        up vote
                        5
                        down vote














                        If a wireless network has collision detection and avoidance, how comes the network slows down if more clients connect to it?




                        To begin with I wanted to note that 802.11 makes use of collision avoidance, but not detection. These are two entirely different processes.



                        As for why an 802.11 network slows down if there are more clients, there are two primary reasons.



                        First, there is an increase in the amount of management traffic when you have more clients. One example is that each client will be sending out periodic probe requests which take up air time and may cause the AP to respond with a probe response (also taking up air time). Clients do this to determine if they should roam to a different AP on the same network or to a different network based on changing conditions.



                        Another example is that many clients will send frames informing the network that they are "sleeping" or entering a power save mode. This lets the AP know to hold onto frames for the client until a designated time when the client will wake up to check for traffic. While this may seem a bit wasteful, it is actually more efficient in general as it prevents the AP from sending and resending a frame for a sleeping client. However, either way, some air time is used.



                        Second, as others have also pointed out, there are simply more collisions. CA does provide a framework of rules to help avoid collisions, but they can still occur (afterall, it isn't collision elimination, right?). There are a number of factors here, but one of the biggest is the more clients on the network, the greater the chance of having a hidden node issue (or more than one). This is when you have two clients that are typically (but not always) on opposite sides of an AP's coverage zone, such that they can hear the AP but not the other client.



                        Since someone else brought up the traffic analogy, there are rules of the road which help with collision avoidance (i.e. stay in your lane, use of turn signals, etc). Generally speaking even when everyone follows the rules, accidents still happen at times. However, the chances of an accident are far less when yours is the only car on the road than when the road is packed with hundreds of cars.






                        share|improve this answer
























                          up vote
                          5
                          down vote














                          If a wireless network has collision detection and avoidance, how comes the network slows down if more clients connect to it?




                          To begin with I wanted to note that 802.11 makes use of collision avoidance, but not detection. These are two entirely different processes.



                          As for why an 802.11 network slows down if there are more clients, there are two primary reasons.



                          First, there is an increase in the amount of management traffic when you have more clients. One example is that each client will be sending out periodic probe requests which take up air time and may cause the AP to respond with a probe response (also taking up air time). Clients do this to determine if they should roam to a different AP on the same network or to a different network based on changing conditions.



                          Another example is that many clients will send frames informing the network that they are "sleeping" or entering a power save mode. This lets the AP know to hold onto frames for the client until a designated time when the client will wake up to check for traffic. While this may seem a bit wasteful, it is actually more efficient in general as it prevents the AP from sending and resending a frame for a sleeping client. However, either way, some air time is used.



                          Second, as others have also pointed out, there are simply more collisions. CA does provide a framework of rules to help avoid collisions, but they can still occur (afterall, it isn't collision elimination, right?). There are a number of factors here, but one of the biggest is the more clients on the network, the greater the chance of having a hidden node issue (or more than one). This is when you have two clients that are typically (but not always) on opposite sides of an AP's coverage zone, such that they can hear the AP but not the other client.



                          Since someone else brought up the traffic analogy, there are rules of the road which help with collision avoidance (i.e. stay in your lane, use of turn signals, etc). Generally speaking even when everyone follows the rules, accidents still happen at times. However, the chances of an accident are far less when yours is the only car on the road than when the road is packed with hundreds of cars.






                          share|improve this answer






















                            up vote
                            5
                            down vote










                            up vote
                            5
                            down vote










                            If a wireless network has collision detection and avoidance, how comes the network slows down if more clients connect to it?




                            To begin with I wanted to note that 802.11 makes use of collision avoidance, but not detection. These are two entirely different processes.



                            As for why an 802.11 network slows down if there are more clients, there are two primary reasons.



                            First, there is an increase in the amount of management traffic when you have more clients. One example is that each client will be sending out periodic probe requests which take up air time and may cause the AP to respond with a probe response (also taking up air time). Clients do this to determine if they should roam to a different AP on the same network or to a different network based on changing conditions.



                            Another example is that many clients will send frames informing the network that they are "sleeping" or entering a power save mode. This lets the AP know to hold onto frames for the client until a designated time when the client will wake up to check for traffic. While this may seem a bit wasteful, it is actually more efficient in general as it prevents the AP from sending and resending a frame for a sleeping client. However, either way, some air time is used.



                            Second, as others have also pointed out, there are simply more collisions. CA does provide a framework of rules to help avoid collisions, but they can still occur (afterall, it isn't collision elimination, right?). There are a number of factors here, but one of the biggest is the more clients on the network, the greater the chance of having a hidden node issue (or more than one). This is when you have two clients that are typically (but not always) on opposite sides of an AP's coverage zone, such that they can hear the AP but not the other client.



                            Since someone else brought up the traffic analogy, there are rules of the road which help with collision avoidance (i.e. stay in your lane, use of turn signals, etc). Generally speaking even when everyone follows the rules, accidents still happen at times. However, the chances of an accident are far less when yours is the only car on the road than when the road is packed with hundreds of cars.






                            share|improve this answer













                            If a wireless network has collision detection and avoidance, how comes the network slows down if more clients connect to it?




                            To begin with I wanted to note that 802.11 makes use of collision avoidance, but not detection. These are two entirely different processes.



                            As for why an 802.11 network slows down if there are more clients, there are two primary reasons.



                            First, there is an increase in the amount of management traffic when you have more clients. One example is that each client will be sending out periodic probe requests which take up air time and may cause the AP to respond with a probe response (also taking up air time). Clients do this to determine if they should roam to a different AP on the same network or to a different network based on changing conditions.



                            Another example is that many clients will send frames informing the network that they are "sleeping" or entering a power save mode. This lets the AP know to hold onto frames for the client until a designated time when the client will wake up to check for traffic. While this may seem a bit wasteful, it is actually more efficient in general as it prevents the AP from sending and resending a frame for a sleeping client. However, either way, some air time is used.



                            Second, as others have also pointed out, there are simply more collisions. CA does provide a framework of rules to help avoid collisions, but they can still occur (afterall, it isn't collision elimination, right?). There are a number of factors here, but one of the biggest is the more clients on the network, the greater the chance of having a hidden node issue (or more than one). This is when you have two clients that are typically (but not always) on opposite sides of an AP's coverage zone, such that they can hear the AP but not the other client.



                            Since someone else brought up the traffic analogy, there are rules of the road which help with collision avoidance (i.e. stay in your lane, use of turn signals, etc). Generally speaking even when everyone follows the rules, accidents still happen at times. However, the chances of an accident are far less when yours is the only car on the road than when the road is packed with hundreds of cars.







                            share|improve this answer












                            share|improve this answer



                            share|improve this answer










                            answered Aug 7 at 1:17









                            YLearn♦

                            20.7k54196




                            20.7k54196




















                                up vote
                                2
                                down vote













                                Straight from Wikipedia:




                                Collision Avoidance: if another node was heard, we wait for a period of time (usually random) for the node to stop transmitting before listening again for a free communications channel.







                                share|improve this answer
























                                  up vote
                                  2
                                  down vote













                                  Straight from Wikipedia:




                                  Collision Avoidance: if another node was heard, we wait for a period of time (usually random) for the node to stop transmitting before listening again for a free communications channel.







                                  share|improve this answer






















                                    up vote
                                    2
                                    down vote










                                    up vote
                                    2
                                    down vote









                                    Straight from Wikipedia:




                                    Collision Avoidance: if another node was heard, we wait for a period of time (usually random) for the node to stop transmitting before listening again for a free communications channel.







                                    share|improve this answer












                                    Straight from Wikipedia:




                                    Collision Avoidance: if another node was heard, we wait for a period of time (usually random) for the node to stop transmitting before listening again for a free communications channel.








                                    share|improve this answer












                                    share|improve this answer



                                    share|improve this answer










                                    answered Aug 6 at 14:34









                                    jonathanjo

                                    5,140222




                                    5,140222






















                                         

                                        draft saved


                                        draft discarded


























                                         


                                        draft saved


                                        draft discarded














                                        StackExchange.ready(
                                        function ()
                                        StackExchange.openid.initPostLogin('.new-post-login', 'https%3a%2f%2fnetworkengineering.stackexchange.com%2fquestions%2f52340%2fpacket-collison-avoidance%23new-answer', 'question_page');

                                        );

                                        Post as a guest













































































                                        Comments

                                        Popular posts from this blog

                                        What does second last employer means? [closed]

                                        List of Gilmore Girls characters

                                        Confectionery