Insights on Next Generation WLAN: High Experiences (HEX)

Abstract: Wireless local area networks (WLANs) have witnessed rapid growth in the past 20 years, with maximum throughput as the key technical objective. However, quality of experience (QoE) remains the primary concern for wireless network users. We point out that poor QoE is the most challenging issue in current WLANs and further analyze the key technical problems that cause poor QoE in WLANs, including fully distributed networking architectures, chaotic random access, awkward “high capability” issues, coarse-grained quality of service (QoS) architectures, ubiquitous and complicated interference, “no place” for AI issues, and heavy burden of standard evolution. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first work to point out that poor QoE is the most challenging problem in current WLANs, and the first to systematically analyze the technical problems that cause poor QoE in WLANs. We strongly suggest that achieving high experience (HEX) be the key objective of the next generation WLANs.

Keywords: wireless local area network; IEEE 802.11; quality of experiences; Wi-Fi; 802.11bn; ultra-high reliability