what is the baseline of an 802.11 wireless network retransmission rate?

[Steve Zhou]

I recently see more than 10% of retransmission from a sniffer trace via wireshark. It sounds really a big problem to me since on Ethernet, I vaguely recall that the baseline of retransmission rate is about 0.5% (correct me if I was wrong)? I am not sure what is the baseline for an 802.11 WLAN.

Any ideas?

[pieterh]

do you use a wireless adapter that is dedicated  to your Wireshark trace? that is promiscuous mode and no data?

if not, your capture may be be influenced by your own data traffic on the adapter.

first try to install a second wireless adapter, using one for data only and the other for sniffer only.

there is no limit that "should be...." 

in a heavy loaded environment with many clients and/or access points collisions can occur wich result in retransmissions.

although retransmissions must be as low as possible, in some cases this should be regarded as "normal" (for the local setup)

especially the 2.4GHz band known to be overloaded