Latency Assurances for Multi-Class Traffic at the QoS-Capable Home Network Wireless Access Point (Tutorial)

Abstract

Emerging broadband networks and technologies have changed the way of home network provision. Provisioning the broadband services has merely accelerated the complexity of home networks to grow. The services demanded by applications are still inadequate under current home network infrastructures. These services require different Quality of Service (QoS) requirements from the networks. As wireless-based communication within the home (e.g. 802.11´) gains wide acceptance because of its mature protocol, becoming the predominant technology for home networking, the question of efficient QoS-aware wireless access point resource allocation and scheduling function implementation arises. In this article we present a resource management and scheduling algorithm for a QoS-aware wireless access point for use in enterprise and home network solutions. The presented algorithm provides delay and packet loss service guarantees to a diverse set of application traffic classes, produced as a result of convergence of home entertainment and data networks. The algorithm is simple, controllable, and scalable for implementation with the support of both absolute and relative QoS guarantees to multi-class traffic.

Keywords

• Home networks
• Quality of services
• Wireless communications