There is one main difference between ATF and the kind of TDMA
realized by an LTE scheduler (but also HSDPA/HSUPA).
Toke correct me if I'm wrong.
The current ATF scheduler for WiFi does airtime-DRR based on the current PHY rates,
is that right? Side question, how do you measure current?
In LTE TDMA makes use of what is called multi-user diversity gain
by scheduling users when they are at their relative best radio condition.
Typically the user with the best current radio condition NORMALIZED
over the average radio conditions. The average can be based on a
moving average or a sliding window. This is the case of the widely used
David Tse's proportional fair scheduler.
This means that TDMA is still in place to share air-time fairly but the
scheduler will tend to avoid bad radio conditions.
From a theoretical point of view if you do that the total capacity
of the AP can increase with the number of stations (I think logarithmically)
as the scheduler surfs across radio quality peaks and not the average radio
quality. Very smart.
In LTE this is doable as the scheduling time slot is 1ms and the feedback channel
is as fast. Not all TDMAs are equal.
Maybe the current scheduler in WiFi can be improved to do that. Maybe.