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4.11 What is RTS (Request To Send) Threshold?
The RTS threshold is the packet size at which packet
transmission is governed by the RTS/CTS transaction. The
IEEE 802.11-1997 standard allows for short packets to be
transmitted without RTS/CTS transactions. Each station
can have a different RTS threshold. RTS/CTS is used
when the data packet size exceeds the defined RTS
threshold. With the CSMA/CA transmission mechanism,
the transmitting station sends out an RTS packet to the
receiving station, and waits for the receiving station to
send back a CTS (Clear to Send) packet before sending the
actual packet data.
This setting is useful for networks with many clients.
With many clients, and a high network load, there will be
many more collisions. By lowering the RTS threshold,
there may be fewer collisions, and performance should
improve. Basically, with a faster RTS threshold, the
system can recover from problems faster. RTS packets
consume valuable bandwidth, however, so setting this
value too low will limit performance.
