A lot of air time (pun intended) has been provided for the PHYsical layer amendments to the 802.11 standard. These would include 802.11n, 802.11ac, 802.11ad, and others. These amendments tend to get a lot of publicity because they have increased the speed/throughput of 802.11 over the years (from 1-2 Mbps in 1997 for the original 802.11 spec to “gigabit” in 2013 with the 11ac and 11ad amendments).
But what about those amendments that simply aren’t as “sexy” and provide only MAC layer enhancements? Aren’t these important too?
The answer is YES and in this short series of blogs, we’ll spend some time looking at the lesser known but undeservedly underappreciated amendments to 802.11, especially 802.11k, 802.11r, and 802.11v and the features/benefits they provide.
This first blog will explain the basics of 802.11k “WLAN Radio Measurements” and will specifically zoom in on the Neighbor Request/Report.
Wireless LAN Radio Measurements (802.11k)
Wireless Local Area Network (WLAN) Radio Measurements can enable any device, AP or client, with the capability to better understand the environment in which it is operating. A variety of requests can be generated for which the device receiving a request can respond with a report.
As one example, an AP could ask a client “how well are you hearing me?” using a Link Measurement request. The client would respond with a Link Measurement report (conversely, a client could ask an AP “how well are you hearing me?”).
Since the ability to measure and collect information is provided, a device submitting a request can make a better informed decision as to its “next steps” in adapting to/compensating for the dynamics of the WLAN environment.
Information obtained from a measurement and/or report can be made available to upper layers of the measuring and/or requesting device where it may be used for a range of applications. Such applications may be engaged in attempting to preserve the QoE (Quality of Experience) for the end user.
As one example, in order to preserve the QoE for applications such as VoIP and video streaming, WLAN Radio Measurements may be used by client device to collect information from the AP prior to that client device disassociating from one AP and reassociating to a new AP. This can dramatically speed up reconnecting from one AP to another AP in the same WLAN.
802.11k describes the following measurements: Continue reading “Why the 802.11k and Neighbor Report are Important?”
Guest Blog by, Paul Bosco, vice president, market development, Cisco Service Provider business
As health care providers adopt more cloud and software-as-a-service (SaaS) services, their application environment has become extraordinarily complex. With billions of new cloud, mobile, and Internet of Things (IoT) connections coming over the next few years, things will get even more complicated. IT is facing high operational costs and inefficiencies as they struggle to simply and manages all of these diverse applications, systems, data, and things, many of which no longer even reside within the enterprise. They look for new ways to capitalize on existing resources and data, augment other services outside of the enterprise and deliver new customer experiences to stay ahead.
