Wi-Fi CERTIFIED QoS Management™ Technology Overview (2021)

Wi-Fi CERTIFIED QoS Management is an optional Wi-Fi Alliance® certification program that improves the Wi-Fi®  user experience in real-time applications, such as online gaming and augmented and virtual reality (AR/VR). Wi-Fi QoS Management technology extends features of Wi-Fi CERTIFIED WMM to simplify the prioritization and management of latency-sensitive internet protocol (IP) traffic in Wi-Fi networks. Program features enable IP data flows to be classified and mapped to one of the quality of service (QoS) access categories defined by WMM® to help ensure that traffic for real-time applications and services is inserted into queues with higher priority, resulting in a better experience for end users.

Wi-Fi technology is used for an expanding range of applications and services with a variety of QoS requirements. All of these benefit from higher throughput and lower latency. Some services, such as video streaming use large playback buffers to help tolerate short-term variations in link quality, but still require a minimum average throughput to avoid service interruption. More advanced services that rely on real-time interactions via audio and video—such as voice-over-IP (VoIP), online gaming, enterprise videoconferencing, live streaming, and AR/VR—have higher demands to avoid latency and jitter, and also require high instantaneous throughput to deliver a quality experience. Good service delivery entails consistently applied QoS treatment policies that deliver reliable service even when the Wi-Fi environment experiences dynamic changes, such as peaks in traffic demand and interference. The Wi-Fi QoS Managementcertification program delivers a consistent, end-to-end QoS treatment in Wi-Fi networks, providing robust service delivery and quality experiences in real-time applications.

This paper discusses the key features of the Wi-Fi QoS Management program, their applicability to use cases, and implementation considerations.

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