New IEEE 802.11 MAC module for NS 2

This article presents a new implementation of the IEEE 802.11 Medium Access Control (MAC) protocol to be used with the network simulation tool NS 2. It is well known that the current implementation of this protocol is faulty both semantically and syntactically. This fact has motivated us to design and implement an alternative that is closer to the protocol specified by the standards, and that it is easier to understand and to change. The proposed module is based on a few finite state machines, with links between events and procedures easily understood. The proposed changes were added to NS 2 and tested against the original implementation. The new module performed well and the differences found can be justified by the faults present in the original implementation.