This paper investigates the impact of the channel code rate and of the antenna processing method on the behavior of a wireless network in which interference cancellation enables the coexistence of multiple concurrent communications between different node pairs that share the same communication medium. Moving from an exhaustive Monte Carlo evaluation of the capture probability in deterministic and random topologies, the final performance is estimated by calculating the network capacity and the fairness index in the presence of the simpler end-fire arrays and of the more sophisticated smart antenna systems. The aim is to discuss the influence of channel coding and spatial reuse on the performance achievable by an uncoordinated peer-to-peer network operating in a low-rank propagation environment, with particular reference to the combined effect of nodes' position and beamforming algorithm.
