On the utility of rate adaptation for broadcast/multicast media traffic in 802.11 networks
Kyungsoo Lee, Sangki Yun, Yongtae Park, Hyogon Kim · 2009
As there is no MAC layer acknowledgment from the receiver for broadcast/multicast transmission in the 802.11 network, using the lowest transmission rate is understandably the safest approach because it minimizes reception error for clients with the worst channel condition. On the contrary, the transmission rate for receivers with good channel conditions is unnecessarily limited. In the case of video streams being broadcast/multicast via 802.11, this approach will lead to poor received video at all clients.