RxIP: Monitoring the health of home wireless networks

Abstract—Deploying home access points (AP) is hard. Untrained users typically purchase, install, and configure a home AP with very little awareness of wireless signal coverage and complex interference conditions. We envision a future of autonomous wireless network management that uses the Internet as an enabling technology. By leveraging a P2P architecture over wired Internet connections, nearby APs can coordinate to manage their shared wireless spectrum, especially in the face of network-crippling faults. As a specific instance of this architecture, we build RxIP, a network diagnostic and recovery tool, initially targeted towards hidden terminal mitigation. Our stable, in-kernel implementation demonstrates that APs in real home settings can detect hidden interferers, and agree on a mutually beneficial channel access strategy. Consistent throughput and fairness gains with TCP traffic and in-home micro-mobility confirm the viability of the system. We believe that using RxIP to ad...

• Type: Journal
• Year: 2012
• Where: INFOCOM
• Authors: Justin Manweiler, Peter Franklin, Romit Roy Choudhury
• Keywords: Communications, Home Management Systems, INFOCOM 2012, Kernel Implementation, Wireless Network Management