On the Performance of IEEE 802.11p Outside the Context of a BSS Networks

The IEEE 802.11p amendment is part of the IEEE 802.11 family standard since the end of 2012. It specifies technical property such as the use of the 5.9GHz band with a 10MHz wide channel and a new operation mode, that each 802.11p compliant device should be set to: the Outside Context of a Basic Service Set (OCB) mode. OCB mode does not need authentication nor association and the only parameter to set is the central channel frequency and the channel bandwidth to communicate on. The Linux kernel has been recently updated with the introduction of the OCB mode, allowing the open-source community to test and develop network services on top of 802.11p networks. In this paper, the Linux OCB is presented and tested. A real testbed to measure performance of standard TCP communications in OCB mode is provided for the first time and experimental characterizations of the throughput and latency over OCB communications are given. Moreover, the paper individuates the best TCP modules' configuration to operate on 802.11p networks with low latency.