In this paper, we study the theoretical problem of the end-to-end rate assignment for multi-hop wireless networks. Specifically, we consider the problem of joint congestion control, random access and power control design with multihop transmissions and interference-limited link rates. In order to address both the end-to-end throughput maximization and energy efficiency, we formulate this problem into a cross-layer design problem under a realistic interference-based communication model, which captures the attainable link capacity in practice. There are primarily three challenges in this design: 1) how to formulate the cross-layer design; 2) how to solve the nonconvex and non-separable problem efficiently; more importantly 3) under a reasonably complexity, how to design a distributed algorithm that can realize this formulation while maintaining the architectural modularity among different layers. First, we propose a novel method that can convert a nonconvex and non-separable programming ...