Performance analysis of some operating systems in wireless 802.11n networks

Abstract

In this paper, the performance of some operating systems (Windows 7, Windows XP, and Fedora 12) are evaluated over IEEE 802.11n WLAN (Wireless LAN), for TCP (Transmission Control Protocol) and UDP (User Datagram Protocol), IPv6 (Internet Protocol v6) and IPv4 protocols. At the time of this research, Windows 7 is still the most widely implemented operating system, although newer version of Windows operating system (Windows 8 and Windows 10) and Fedora have since been introduced but not as widely used. This paper provides better understanding of how an Operating Systems can affect link throughput and delay. We determine the throughput and delay differences between all operating systems considered. Fedora provides higher throughput and lower delay than Windows 7, while Windows XP has the lowest throughput and highest delay. Due to higher overhead, TCP provides lower bandwidth than UDP for all operating systems considered.