Impact of EIRP Limit Changes on the Performance of 2.4 GHz WiFi Systems

This paper addresses whether or not an increase in the equivalent isotropic radiated power limit would benefit WiFi performance in typical UK urban environments. Using simulation, it compares two types of system: one that is designed to provide blanket coverage and another that is a random collection of home networks. It also considers their impact on each other's performance for a range of home network deployment densities. It is shown that when both types of network co-exist the average downlink throughput performance can be improved by increasing the UK regulatory limit from 20 to 27 dBm. However, this improvement decreases with network deployment density and ranges from approximately a twenty percent improvement at the lowest density to a negligible one at the highest. Uplink performance is not considered.