A large number of heterogeneous wireless networks share the unlicensed spectrum designated as the ISM (Industry, Scientific, and Medicine) radio band. These networks do not adhere to a common medium access rule and differ in their specifications considerably. As a result, when concurrently active, they cause cross-technology interference (CTI) on each other. The effect of this interference is not reciprocal, the networks using high transmission power and advanced transmission schemes often causing disproportionate disruptions to those with modest communication and computation resources. CTI corrupts packets, incurs packet retransmission cost, introduces end-to-end latency and jitter, and make networks unpredictable. The purpose of this paper is to closely examine its impact on low-power networks which are based on the IEEE 802.15.4 standard. It discusses latest developments on CTI detection, coexistence and avoidance mechanisms as well on messaging schemes which attempt to enable heterogeneous networks directly communicate with one another to coordinate packet transmission and channel assignment.
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