USRobotics Instant802 APSDK manual Quality of Service, Understanding QoS, QoS and Load Balancing

Professional Access Point

Administrator Guide

Quality of Service

Quality of Service (QoS) provides you with the ability to specify parameters on multiple queues for increased throughput and better performance of differentiated wireless traffic like Voice-over-IP(VoIP); other types of audio, video, and streaming media; and traditional IP data.

The following sections describe how to configure Quality of Service queues on the Professional Access Point:

•Understanding QoS

•QoS and Load Balancing

•802.11e and WMM Standards Support

•QoS Queues and Parameters to Coordinate Traffic Flow

•Navigating to QoS Settings

•Configuring QoS Queues

•Configuring AP EDCA Parameters

•Enabling/Disabling Wi-Fi Multimedia

•Configuring Station EDCA Parameters

•Updating Settings

Understanding QoS

A primary factor that affects QoS is network congestion due to an increased number of clients attempting to access the air waves and higher traffic volume competing for bandwidth during a busy time of day. The most noticeable degradation in service on a busy, overloaded network will be evident in time-sensitive applications like video, Voice-over-IP(VoIP), and streaming media.

Unlike typical data files, which are less affected by variability in QoS, video, VoIP and streaming media must be sent in a specific order at a consistent rate and with minimum delay between Packet transmissions. If the quality of service is compromised, the audio or video will be distorted.

QoS and Load Balancing

By using a combination of load balancing (see “Load Balancing” on page 139) and QoS techniques, you can provide a high quality of service for time-sensitive applications, even on a busy network. Load balancing is a way of better distributing the traffic volume across access points. QoS is a means of allocating bandwidth and network access based on transmission priorities for different types of wireless traffic within a single access point.

802.11e and WMM Standards Support

QoS describes a range of technologies for controlling data streams on shared network connections. The

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