This problem will help you understand why you cannot achieve the physical layer rate at the medium access layer in 802.11 and will give you an idea that medium access layer throughput is roughly half of the physical layer data rate.

802.11 physical layer transmission rate = 54Mbps

MAC layer data payload = 1452 bytes

MAC header = 28 bytes

ACK Frame Size = 14 bytes

RTS Frame Size = 20 bytes

CTS Frame Size = 14 bytes

SIFS Time = 16 s

DIFS Time = 34 s

Average time spent in backoff = 36 s

MAC layer throughput is defined as the number of bits sent by the MAC layer in a given period of time (1s).

Answer the following questions:

3.1. If there are two stations exchange data using 802.11 DCF but without using RTS/CTS transaction, what is MAC layer throughput?

3.2. What is the throughput when RTS/CTS is used?