Abstract. A mobile ad-hoc network (MANET) is a self-configuring
infrastructure-less network of mobile devices connected by wireless links where
each node or mobile device is independent to move in any desired direction and
thus the links keep moving from one node to another. In such a network, the
mobile nodes are equipped with CSMA/CA (carrier sense multiple access with
collision avoidance) transceivers and communicate with each other via radio. In
MANETs, routing is considered one of the most difficult and challenging tasks.
Because of this, most studies on MANETs have focused on comparing protocols
under varying network conditions. But to the best of our knowledge no one has
studied the effect of other factors on network performance indicators like
throughput, jitter and so on, revealing how much influence a particular factor or
group of factors has on each network performance indicator. Thus, in this study
the effects of three key factors, i.e. routing protocol, packet size and DSSS rate,
were evaluated on key network performance metrics, i.e. average delay and
average jitter, as these parameters are crucial for network performance and
directly affect the buffering requirements for all video devices and downstream
networks.