Abstract — In this paper we present the first detailed theoretical analysis of the potential performance gains of adopting a BSC paradigm in 802.11 WLANs. Importantly, we also consider the multi-user channel aspect of a WLAN i.e. that transmissions are inherently broadcast in nature. We find that increases in network throughput of more than 100 % are possible over a wide range of SNRs. These performance gains are achieved exclusively through software rather than hardware changes. I