Impact of Cell Load on 5GHz IEEE 802.11 WLAN

We have conducted an empirical study of the latest 5GHz IEEE 802.11 wireless LAN (WLAN) variants of 802.11n (5GHz) and 802.11ac (Wave 1), under different cell load conditions. We have considered typical configurations of both protocols on a Linux testbed. Under light load, there is no clear difference between 802.11n and 802.11ac in terms of performance and energy consumption. However, in some cases of high cell load, we have found that there may be a small advantage with802.11ac. Overall, we conclude that there may be little benefit in upgrading from 802.11n (5GHz) to 802.11ac in its current offering, as the benefits may be too small.