Over the past two years, we have been developing ADWISER, an overlay solution for performance management of Wi-Fi networks, that aims to manage user level performance, with a centralised, overlay queueing and scheduling mechanism. The built-in controls in commercial Wi-Fi APs work on long-time scales and have no mechanisms for user level visibility and performance management. ADWISER works at the user and connection level, while aiming at maximising the overall network utility. In the absence of a multi-AP coordination control plane, ADWISER utilises various measurement and learning techniques, with no explicit support from the devices it controls. We will provide some experimental results, and some details of the ADWISER design and implementation. Overall, our experience points to the substantial advantages that explicit multi-AP coordination can reap, and the need for a substantially enhanced control plane.
Anurag Kumar obtained his B.Tech. degree in Electrical Engineering from the Indian Institute of Technology at Kanpur in 1977 and was awarded the President of India’s Gold Medal. He then obtained the PhD degree from Cornell University (1981), where he worked under the guidance of Prof. T.L. Fine. He was a Member of Technical Staff at AT&T Bell Labs, Holmdel, N.J., for over 6 years. During this period, he worked on the performance analysis of computer systems, communication networks, and manufacturing systems. Since 1988 he has been with the Indian Institute of Science (IISc), Bangalore, in the Dept. of Electrical Communication Engineering (ECE), where he is an Honorary Professor at present. From 2000 to 2004 he was the Associate Chair of the ECE Department, from 2004 to 2007 he was the Chair of the ECE Department, from 2007 to 2014, he was the Chair of Electrical Sciences Division, and he was the Director of IISc during August 2014 to July 2020. From 1989 to 2003 he was also the Coordinator at IISc of the nationwide Education and Research Network (ERNET) Project, which established the first country-wide packet communication network in India. After formal superannuation from IISc, Prof. Kumar has continued his academic work as an Honorary Professor in the ECE Department.