Wi-Fi Console: A Step for Global Orchestration of the Spectrum

With COVID-19 stay-at-home restrictions, millions around the globe have had fast and reliable broadband become their lifeline for work, education, socialization, and entertainment.

Managing the quality of broadband experience in the home is more than ever a priority for service providers, and Wi-Fi is at centerstage of that effort. Wi-Fi utilizes unlicensed spectrum that is of great economic value to society, but it comes at the price of uncertain performance. Generally, what happens in unlicensed bands lacks visibility and is thus hard to manage or prevent because we don’t know what to be looking for.

In this paper, we describe neighbor interference as one of the drawbacks of the unlicensed spectrum and how the mix of devices operating in this environment degrades the performance for everyone. Often neighbors end up using the same channel creating an avoidable congestion.