Multi-channel MAC (MMAC) protocols are designed to coordinate multi-user access to several non-overlapping frequency bands. They are primarily tasked with the efficient and fair bandwidth utilization under a variety of traffic load conditions, presuming that terminals follow the protocol specifications. However, selfish terminals can manipulate the protocol parameters to gain an unfair share of the common bandwidth. The problem of selfish MAC-layer misbehavior is well-studied for single-channel MAC protocols, but little attention has been paid when channel access is coordinated across multiple channels. In this paper, we address the problem of MAC-layer misbehavior in the multi-channel domain. We identify misbehavior strategies for popular classes of MMAC protocols (split-phase and dedicated control channel MMACs) and evaluate their impact on network throughput and fairness. We show that selfish terminals can easily isolate frequency bands for exclusive use without violating the protocol specifications. We develop corresponding detection and mitigation strategies that greatly reduce the throughput gains due to misbehavior.

中文翻译：

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多通道 MAC 协议中的不当行为

多信道 MAC (MMAC) 协议旨在协调多用户访问多个非重叠频段。他们的主要任务是在各种流量负载条件下有效和公平地利用带宽，假设终端遵循协议规范。然而，自私的终端可以操纵协议参数来获得不公平的公共带宽份额。自私 MAC 层不当行为的问题在单通道 MAC 协议中得到了充分研究，但在跨多个通道协调通道访问时却很少受到关注。在本文中，我们解决了多通道域中 MAC 层不当行为的问题。我们确定流行的 MMAC 协议类别（分相和专用控制信道 MMAC）的不当行为策略，并评估它们对网络吞吐量和公平性的影响。我们表明，自私终端可以轻松地隔离专用频段，而不会违反协议规范。我们开发了相应的检测和缓解策略，大大降低了由于不当行为而导致的吞吐量增益。