Defining Priority Level and Service Class

Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) using 802.11 wireless local area networks are enabling the integration of internet telephony technology on wireless networks. Various issues including Quality-of-Service (QoS), call control, network capacity, and network architecture are factors in VoIP over 802.11 WLANs.

Wireless voice data requires a constant transmission rate and must be delivered within a time limit. This type of data is called isochronous data. This requirement for isochronous data is in contradiction to the concepts in the 802.11 standard that allow for data packets to wait their turn to avoid data collisions. Regular traffic on a wireless network is an asynchronous process in which data streams are broken up by random intervals.

To reconcile the needs of isochronous data, mechanisms are added to the network that give voice data traffic or another traffic type priority over all other traffic, and allow for continuous transmission of data.

To provide better network traffic flow, the controller provides advanced Quality of Service (QoS) management. These management techniques include:

• WMM (Wi-Fi Multimedia) — Enabled on individual WLAN Services, is a standard that provides multimedia enhancements that improve the user experience for audio, video, and voice applications. WMM is part of the 802.11e standard for QoS.
• IP ToS (Type of Service) or DSCP (Diffserv Codepoint) — The ToS/DSCP field in the IP header of a frame is used to indicate the priority and Quality of Service for each frame. Adaptive QoS ensures correct priority handling of client payload packets tunneled between the controller and AP by copying the IP ToS/DSCP setting from client packet to the header of the encapsulating tunnel packet.