Comparative Throughput of WiFi and Ethernet LANs using OPNET MODELER

comparison between the performance of both wired and wireless networks is based on various performance parameters. The performance of the wired Ethernet is very sensitive to the number of users and the offered load. When the number of users/offered load is high then the collisions increase resulting in larger wastage of the medium and lowering overall throughput. The aim of this research is to compare the throughput of LANs using Ethernet and WiFi under three different scenarios: 25, 50 and 100 users using simulator OPNET-MODELER. By analyzing the graphs, it is concluded that throughput of Wireless LAN (WiFi) is greater than that of Ethernet with operating at transmission speed of 10 Mbps when sufficient number of users are deployed that the model can support. When the number of users is increased beyond the certain limit, throughput decreases. The throughput of Ethernet and WiFi keeps on increasing and decreasing within some specific range due to the propagation delay and overhead collisions affecting at that time. Keywords-MODELER, WiFi, Ethernet, throughput comparison, network simulation.