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Cisco IOS Software Configuration Guide for Cisco Aironet Access Points
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Chapter15 Configuring QoS
Understanding QoS for Wireless LANs
QoS on the wireless LAN focuses on downstream prioritization from the access point. Figure15-1 shows
the upstream and downstream traffic flow.
Figure15-1 Upstream and Downstream Traffic Flow
•The radio downstream flow is traffic transmitted out the access point radio to a wireless client
device. This traffic is the main focus for QoS on a wireless LAN.
•The radio upstream flow is traffic transmitted out the wireless client device to the access point. QoS
for wireless LANs does not affect this traffic.
•The Ethernet downstream flow is traffic sent from a switch or a router to the Ethernet port on the
access point. If QoS is enabled on the switch or router, the switch or router might prioritize and
rate-limit traffic to the access point.
•The Ethernet upstream flow is traffic sent from the access point Ethernet port to a switch or router
on the wired LAN. The access point does not prioritize traffic that it sends to the wired LAN based
on traffic classification.
Precedence of QoS Settings
When you enable QoS, the access point queues packets based on the Layer 2 class of service value for
each packet. The access point applies QoS policies in this order:
1. Packets already classified—When the access point receives packets from a QoS-enabled switch or
router that has already classified the packets with non-zero 802.1Q/P user_priority values, the access
point uses that classification and does not apply other QoS policy rules to the packets. An existing
classification takes precedence over all other policies on the access point.
Note Even if you have not configured a QoS policy, the access point always honors tagged 802.1P
packets that it receives over the radio interface.
2. QoS Element for Wireless Phones setting—If you enable the QoS Element for Wireless Phones
setting, dynamic voice classifiers are created for some of the wireless phone vendor clients, which
allows the wireless phone traffic to be a higher priority than other clients’ traffic. Additionally, the
QoS Basic Service Set (QBSS) is enabled to advertise channel load information in the beacon and
probe response frames. Some IP phones use QBSS elements to determine which access point to
associate to, based on the traffic load.
You can use the Cisco IOS command dot11 phone dot11ecommand to enable the future upgrade
of the 7920 Wireless Phone firmware to support the standard QBSS Load IE. The new 7920 Wireless
Phone firmware will be announced at a later date.
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