Measuring the weather’s impact on MAC layer over 2.4 GHz outdoor radio links

• We show that the weather’s impact is clearly notice at MAC layer in IEEE 802.11b/g.
• Deployment of a real network to measure control frame errors periodically.
• Correlation level among the number of control frame errors and weather conditions.
• The weather impacts negatively on performance of outdoor links IEEE 802.11b/g.
• Lower-order modulations and data rates are more robust against weather conditions.

The weather’s impact on the performance of a radio link at the 2.4 GHz ISM (Industry, Scientific and Medical) band had not been yet studied in great detail up to now as it is generally believed that the ultra-high frequency band is not significantly affected by weather conditions. However, our study shows significant correlations between meteorological variables and control frame errors at MAC (Medium Access Control) layer of the IEEE 802.11b/g standard. This study is performed over an outdoor radio link setting which has been monitored for several months. Moreover, we check if link distance and so modulation scheme and data rate are also decisive features of such impact. Our real scenario is composed of a point-to-multipoint link, one longer distance’s than the other one. Finally, we conclude that the weather impacts on the number of control frame errors, and so it should be taken into account to design and deploy outdoor radio links IEEE 802.11b/g. Moreover, we have showed that such impact depends on data rate and modulation scheme.