The Emperor has No Problem: Is Wi-Fi Spectrum Really Congested?

34 Pages Posted: 31 Mar 2013 Last revised: 17 Oct 2013

See all articles by Jean Pierre De Vries

Jean Pierre De Vries

University of Colorado at Boulder Law School - Silicon Flatirons Center

Ljiljana Simic

RWTH Aachen University

Andreas Achtzehn

RWTH Aachen University

Marina Petrova

RWTH Aachen University

Petri Mähönen

RWTH Aachen University

Date Written: October 9, 2013

Abstract

“Wi-Fi congestion is a very real and growing problem.” So said then-Chairman of the FCC Genachowski in a recent proceeding, and this sentiment is widely heard. However, we are aware of very few engineering studies that have a bearing on this matter, and their conclusions are equivocal. Beyond this, evidence for “congestion problems” in the 2.4 GHz ISM band is anecdotal at best.

While some users no doubt sometimes have service difficulties they ascribe to congestion, that is not sufficient to prove that there is a policy problem. In order to provide a basis for policy decisions, we offer an analysis of congestion metrics and results in the engineering literature. We conclude that there is little consensus on how to measure congestion, and that network metrics are difficult to correlate with user experience.

We therefore propose a list of user experience-oriented service impairment criteria that, if met, would demonstrate that congestion exists to a degree that justifies regulatory intervention: For more than one key scenarios that are provided by an operator or technology there is a significant increase in the percentage of users who can’t complete a valuable task on a persistent, ubiquitous basis in spite of the use of state-of-the-art engineering/deployment best practices, and users’ willingness to pay the market rate for the best available service level.

Based on our assessment of public reports and experimental data, we conclude that there is currently no evidence for pervasive Wi-Fi congestion. We do not claim that the absence of evidence of congestion amounts to evidence for the absence of congestion. However, we do question the argument that congestion occurring somewhere, sometimes is a justification for regulatory intervention.

Keywords: Wi-Fi, spectrum, congestion, regulation, TPRC

Suggested Citation

De Vries, Jean Pierre and Simic, Ljiljana and Achtzehn, Andreas and Petrova, Marina and Mähönen, Petri, The Emperor has No Problem: Is Wi-Fi Spectrum Really Congested? (October 9, 2013). TPRC 41: The 41st Research Conference on Communication, Information and Internet Policy, Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=2241609 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.2241609

Jean Pierre De Vries (Contact Author)

University of Colorado at Boulder Law School - Silicon Flatirons Center ( email )

1070 Edinboro Drive
Boulder, CO 80309
United States

Ljiljana Simic

RWTH Aachen University ( email )

Templergraben 55
52056 Aachen, 52056
Germany

Andreas Achtzehn

RWTH Aachen University ( email )

Templergraben 55
52056 Aachen, 52056
Germany

Marina Petrova

RWTH Aachen University ( email )

Templergraben 55
52056 Aachen, 52056
Germany

Petri Mähönen

RWTH Aachen University ( email )

Templergraben 55
52056 Aachen, 52056
Germany

Do you have a job opening that you would like to promote on SSRN?

Paper statistics

Downloads
351
Abstract Views
4,682
Rank
143,664
PlumX Metrics