Follow me:

Interframe Spaces

EDCA

Interframe spaces play an important role in 802.11 medium contention. They are used as additional medium contention protocols in addition to CCA and NAV. An interframe space, or IFS, is a quiet period access points and stations must wait before transmitting a frame.

There are shorter interframe spaces used for higher priority data transmissions. Think about QoS in that regard.

There are four rules that define which IFS will be used before frame transmission:

  • If arbitration is complete, then reduced IFS (RIFS) or short IFS (SIFS) will be used.
  • If arbitration has not been determined, then arbitration IFS (AIFS) or DCF IFS (DIFS) will be used. DIFS is used for 802.11 WLANs that don’t support 802.11e QoS.
  • If AP or station received a corrupted frame, then extended IFS (EIFS) will be used.
  • PCF IFS (PIFS) is part of PCF and not used in the real world.

AIFS

DCF Access Category Windows

EDCA

Links and Resources Mentioned

Hosted by
Rowell

Rowell, CWNE #210, is a network engineer in Higher-Ed. He enjoys working with wireless networking technologies and loves to share and engage with the community. You can connect with him on Twitter, LinkedIn, and Facebook.

Join the discussion

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.

More from this show

Episode 42