Details
Collision avoidance is used to improve the performance of the CSMA method by attempting to divide the channel somewhat equally among all transmitting nodes within the collision domain.
Although CSMA/CA has been used in a variety of wired communication systems, it is particularly beneficial in a wireless LAN due to a common problem of multiple stations being able to see the Access Point, but not each other. This is due to differences in transmit power, and receive sensitivity, as well as distance, and location with respect to the AP. This will cause a station to not be able to 'hear' another station's broadcast. This is the so called 'hidden node', or 'hidden station' problem. Devices utilizing 802.11 based standards can enjoy the benefits of collision avoidance (RTS / CTS handshake, also Point coordination function), although they do not do so by default. By default they use a Carrier sensing mechanism called 'exponential backoff', or (Distributed coordination function) that relies upon a station attempting to 'listen' for another station's broadcast before sending. CA, or PCF relies upon the AP (or the 'receiver' for Ad hoc networks) granting a station the exclusive right to transmit for a given period of time after requesting it (Request to Send / Clear to Send).
Read more about this topic: Carrier Sense Multiple Access With Collision Avoidance
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