Operators are increasingly relying on Wi-Fi to enable Cellular offload and offer Wi-Fi-as-a-Service. However, users often turn off Wi-Fi when they encounter an unsatisfying experience such as poor connectivity, long connection times, poor roaming experience, reduced bandwidth due to spectral inefficiency (excessive management frames), etc. Qualcomm Research has developed 802.11ai based technology to solve such issues which are pervasive in today’s public Wi-Fi networks.
Increased Capacity: For users already connected to a Wi-Fi AP, the arrival of a large number of new users can cause what is known as “probe storms” and/or “association storms” and consequently lead to a temporary service outage. This is a common problem in busy train or subway stations and airports. Also, operators of dense Wi-Fi networks observe decreased capacity as 20-60% of the medium is occupied by management frames overhead.
802.11ai FILS and probe storm reduction techniques can significantly reduce the medium overhead attributable to probe requests/responses, beacons and link setup signaling, resulting in increased capacity and better user experience even as hundreds of new users try to access the Wi-Fi network.