GB2545928B - Data network management - Google Patents

Description

Data network management

Field of Invention

The present invention relates to wireless networks and in particular to a method and apparatus forprioritising access to network resources when the network link is experiencing congestion.

Background

Wi-Fi and home networks

In wireless communications, the IEEE 802.11 family of standards, known as Wi-Fi is a popular protocolfor allowing devices to communicate wirelessly using radio wave transmission. A group of devices allcommunicating via a common wireless access point is known as a wireless local area network (WLANs).

The wireless access point is also commonly combined with a wired network interface for connectivitywith wired devices using an Ethernet protocol (IEEE 802.3) and a wide area network (WAN) interfacesuch as an xDSL modem or cable modem for connectivity to remote networks and resources such asfile and video servers via an Internet Service Provider (ISP) and then a wide area network such as theInternet. Such devices will be referred to as a hub.

Fairness in Wi-Fi

In the Wi-Fi standards, all devices forming part of a WLAN communicate using a shared radiofrequency channel, currently defined to be a frequency in a 2.4Ghz or 5Ghz range. Any transmissionsby a device will be receivable by other devices within reception range and therefore if two or moredevices transmit at the same time, there will be interference. To avoid the need for a transmissionscheduler to coordinate all devices, Wi-Fi devices use Carrier Sense Multiple Access - CollisionAvoidance (CSMA-CA) to ensure that a device will only try to transmit when they have listened to thetransmission channel and determined that the channel is clear. If the channel is in use, then the devicewill "back off", i.e., wait a short period of time before trying the channel again. In this way, only onedevice can transmit on the channel at any given time.

In general, all devices connected to a Wi-Fi network have equal priority. When the channel is deemedto be busy, each device will have similar time-out period before retesting the channel and onceacquired, the device has the same opportunity for packet transmission. For example, device A isallowed to transmit 500 packets, and device B is also allowed to transmit 500 packets. Whilst such ascheme provides fairness, if the transmission speed of data packets from device A is much slower thanthe transmission speed of device B (for example, device A is using a slower transmission scheme for robustness), then device A will lock out the rest of the channel for a much longer period of time,thereby reducing the performance of the network as a whole.

In a WLANs, due to the CSMA-CA and fairness policy in Wi-Fi, as the number of connected devicesincreases, the performance for each individual device connected to the WLAN decreases due tocontention for the common channel. At any given time, there is a greater probability that the channelwill be in use which will result in any one device having to wait longer before it is able to transmit onthe channel. A large number of visiting devices connecting to a WLAN is problematic for regular users of the WLAN,for example if the main user of a WLAN has visitors and they all connect their personal devices to theWLAN to access network services, then there can be network performance issues for other regularhome users of the WLAN. For example, regular users of the WLAN may be subjected to a noticeabledrop in performance (for example, slow web page loading times, slow file transfer speeds, droppedvideo frames and/or bad voice quality) and this can be frustrating.

Quality of Service (QoS) A device connected to a Wi-Fi network will typically transmit data packets relating to several dataapplications, for example, file transfer, text, audio, video etc. Each type of application will havedifferent requirements with regards to latency and accuracy. For example the speed of a file transferis secondary to the requirement for the received data packets to be free of errors and in order. Incontrast, for a video streaming application or Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) application, droppingpackets is preferable to a break in the flow of received and decoded data packets.

To address the different requirements for different services, Quality of Service (QoS) requirementscan be defined for the different application types and a packet priority is assigned to packets belongingto each application type. In this way, certain types of traffic to be prioritised for delivery through thenetwork from a sender to a receiver, for example video packets have higher priority than file transfers.This is especially important when there is network congestion.

Whilst QoS provides some control for service prioritisation, it is not widely implemented in WLANs.Furthermore, even when QoS is enabled, QoS operates in terms of services and applications, not users.Therefore if visiting users connect their devices to the WLAN and use video streaming or VoIP services,they will receive higher priority than a regular user device downloading a file.

Embodiments of the present invention are directed towards a modification of the behaviour of thehub in order to provision for preferential performance being offered to devices of regular users of thenetwork at the expense of visiting users.

Statements of Invention

In one aspect, an embodiment of the present invention provides an apparatus for managing a datanetwork connected to a plurality of devices, comprising: a network controller for controlling operationparameters of the data network; a data store for storing identity information relating to a set of theplurality of devices which are privileged devices eligible for prioritised access to the data network; anda network monitor for monitoring performance characteristics of the network, wherein, the networkmonitor is operable to notify the network controller when utilisation of the network exceeds athreshold level of activity, and in response to the notification, the network controller is operable to:determine that at least one privileged device is currently present on the wireless data network; notifythe privileged device that prioritised access to the network is available; process a response from theprivileged device; and if the response is indicative of a request for prioritised access, change at leastone operating parameter of the network to provide prioritised access to the network for the privilegeddevice.

In another aspect, an embodiment of the present invention provides a method for managing an accesspoint maintaining a local area network and connected to a plurality of devices, at least one of theplurality of devices being a privileged device, the method comprising: monitoring network utilisationof the network; and when the network utilisation is determined to have exceeded a threshold level ofactivity, determining whether a privileged device is currently active on the network; notifying thedetermined privileged device that prioritised access to the network is available, processing a responsefrom the privileged device, and if the response is a request for prioritised access, changing operationalcharacteristics of the network to provide prioritised access to the network for the privileged device.

In a further aspect, an embodiment of the present invention provides a computer program productcarrying processor executable instructions for causing a programmable processor to carry out themethod according to any of claims 8 to 14.

Figures

Embodiments of the present invention will now be described with the aid of the accompanying Figuresin which:

Figure 1 schematically shows an example wireless network of wireless devices connected to a wirelessaccess point operating in accordance with a first embodiment of the invention;

Figure 2 schematically shows the physical components of a wireless access point illustrated in Figure1;

Figure 3 schematically shows the functional components of the wireless access point when operatingin accordance with the first embodiment;

Figure 4 is a flowchart showing the operation of the wireless access point to provide priority access toa privileged device within the wireless network; and

Figure 5 is a flowchart showing the operation to generate a policy to enable prioritised access.

Description

System overview

Figure 1 illustrates an overview of a network system in accordance with a first embodiment. A user'shome 1 or other local network environment is shown containing a number of networking components.A combined routing and wireless access point device 3 such as a BT Home Hub, or other similarcombined routing and wireless access point device (hereinafter referred to as a hub 3) generates andmaintains a wireless network (WLAN) 5 to enable data connectivity between a number of user devices7 such as laptops, computers, smartphones and tablets within the home network environment. Forease of explanation, four exemplary devices are shown, two laptops 7a, 7b and two smartphones 7c,7d. To better explain the first embodiment, the laptops 7a and 7b are exemplary devices of regularusers of the WLAN 5, while smartphones 7c and 7d are devices of visitors to the WLAN 5.

In Figure 1, the hub 3 and user devices 7 within range of the WLAN 5 are wirelessly linked using theIEEE 802.11ac variant of the Wi-Fi family of wireless protocols. The WLAN 5 is configured ininfrastructure mode in which each device 7 in the network 5 is wirelessly connected to the hub 3 viaa Wi-Fi link 9. Due to the transmission power and signal propagation limitations of Wi-Fi, the range ofthe wireless network 5 formed by the wireless access point 3 extends for several tens of meters aroundthe hub 3 and data connectivity is generally limited to being within the home 1.

As is conventional, to enable communication between the devices connected to the WLAN 5 andexternal services not forming part of the WLAN 5, the hub 3 also has a copper/optical fibre data link11 operating in accordance with the Very-High-Bitrate Digital Subscriber Line (VDSL) standards. Thecopper/optical fibre data link 11 connects the hub 3 to an Internet Service Provider (ISP) core network13. The ISP network core 13 provides user management and control features for the user's account.The ISP network core 13 is connected to external Wide Area Networks (WAN) such as the Internet 15and therefore allows data exchange between user devices and any external services provided byremote servers 17 such as video streaming and web services.

Overview operation

During the normal operation of the WLAN 5, the hub 3 is configured to operate in a conventionalmanner whereby all user devices 7 are given the same opportunity to transmit and receive data in a"fair" manner. Therefore the transmission time windows and priority for traffic are the same for alldevices.

When there are many regular and visiting devices 7 connected to the WLAN and using high bandwidthservices, contention and congestion will often affect the performance of the WLAN for all users. Atypical scenario would be a party or social gathering where all the guests ask to connect their devicesto the host's WLAN.

In this scenario, the temporary increase in the number of connected devices and bandwidthconsumption will affect the performance of the WLAN, and, it may cause a loss in performance for theregular devices which are normally connected to the network, primarily due to network contention.

To overcome this, in the first embodiment an administrator for the hub 3 can designate devices whichare to be considered as "privileged" devices to the WLAN 5. The hub 3 is configured to monitor thenetwork traffic over the WLAN 5 and when a number of performance metrics, such as bandwidth, isdeemed to have exceeded a predetermined threshold value, the hub 3 will generate a policy basedon the current state of the WLAN. The hub 3 will then locate the highest ranking privileged device andsend a message to the user of that device asking whether they wish to have prioritised access to thenetwork. If the response indicates that the user wants prioritised access, then policy is applied to acombination of the hub and the user devices connected to the WLAN in order to effect the prioritisedaccess. In general the aim of the policy is to improve the performance of the WLAN for the privilegeddevice by making changes to at least one operation parameter of the WLAN such as band steering,access control and quality of service.

During the period of priority access, the state of WLAN is continually monitored and when the overallnetwork is no longer congested, or the privileged device disconnects from the WLAN, the policy isremoved and the WLAN is returned to standard operation.

In this way, the hub 3 functions conventionally for most of the time but when network congestionoccurs, the regular users of the WLAN can choose to be protected from the congestion so that theycan continue to function normally at the expense of the WLAN performance for transient visitingdevices.

System components

Figure 2 shows the physical components of a hub 3 in the first embodiment. The hub 3 contains aprocessor 21 and a memory 23 for internal processing and hub functions. For external connectivity,the hub 3 has a Wi-Fi wireless interface 25 and a wired Ethernet interface T1 for communication withother wired local devices within the home network 5 and a WAN interface 29 for communication withremote devices 17 via the ISP core 13, in this embodiment the WAN interface 29 is a Very-high-bit-rate Digital Subscriber Line (VDSL) modem. The components are connected via a system bus 31.

To perform the processing according to the first embodiment, the memory 23 of the hub 3 containscomputer program instructions which are executable by the processor 21 to define a number offunctional software units. When these instructions are being executed, the hub 3 can be regarded ascontaining a number of functional units for collecting and processing data in accordance with the firstembodiment.

Figure 3 shows the functional components of the hub 3. For external connections, the hub3 has a Wi-Fi interface 41, an Ethernet interface 43 and a WAN interface 45 each containing the hardware andsoftware functionality corresponding to the physical Wi-Fi interface 25, Ethernet Interface T1 andVDSL modem 29 respectively. A packet routing function 47 routes packets between the differentinterfaces in accordance with packet information. The hub 3 also contains a prioritisation controller49 in accordance with the first embodiment to control the operation of the hub.

The prioritisation controller 49 is responsible for monitoring the state of the connections to the variousdevices and determining when to offer priority access to certain devices in order to maintain a qualityof experience for privileged devices, such as devices of regular local users, perhaps at the expense ofvisiting devices.

To determine the WLAN 5 state, the prioritisation controller 49 contains a Wi-Fi throughputmeasurement monitor 51. This measures the total throughput for all devices sending and receivingdata via the WLAN.

In addition to throughput, metrics about the radio interface are measured by a Radio performancemeasurement monitor 53. This unit measures physical characteristics of the radio signal such as signalto noise ratio and signal strength.

The measurement data obtained from the Wi-Fi and radio monitors 51,53 are processed by a priorityaccess determination unit 55 to determine the status of the WLAN. This unit compares information received from the Wi-Fi throughput measurement monitor 51 against thresholds of system usagestored in a threshold store 57 in order to determine when the WLAN is starting to become congestedand overloaded with user traffic.

The thresholds stored in the threshold store 57 are set by the system administrator of the hub 3 inaccordance with how aggressively the system should respond to increased utilisation of the network.In this embodiment the threshold for throughput is set at 70% of the maximum throughput capacityof the network while the threshold for signal to noise ratio is set to 30dB. .

Since the available bandwidth of the WLAN varies with time due to external interference and therelative locations of the devices 7 to the hub 3, information from the radio performance measurementmonitor 53 is compared against other thresholds such as upstream and downstream retry rates and/orPHY rates to provide further information about the status of the WLAN and the derived informationis also used in determining a policy for enabling prioritised access.

The priority access determination unit 55 compares data from the performance measures against thestored thresholds values in order to determine whether the WLAN 5 has reached a utilisation levelwhereby prioritisation may be beneficial to privileged users.

To enable the priority access determination unit 55 to determine the identity of a privileged device onthe WLAN 5, a privileged device list 59 contains an ordered list of the devices which are eligible forprioritised access within the network, hereinafter referred to as privileged devices. The entries in theprivileged device list 59 are pre-populated by the system administrator for example to indicate thatlaptop 7a is the highest priority device while laptop 7b is the second highest priority device.Smartphones 7c and 7d are visiting devices and therefore there is no corresponding entry in the list59.

The priority access determination unit 55 is configured to find a current highest priority privilegeddevice by comparing the set of devices determined by the WiFi interface 41 to be connected to theWLAN 5 against the privileged device list. In this embodiment, regardless of the number of privilegeddevices connected to the WLAN, the priority access option is only offered to the current highestranking privileged device. In this example, although devices 7a and 7b are connected the WLAN, device7a is determined to be the highest privileged device listed in the privileged device list 59.

In addition to identifying network congestion and a privileged device, the priority accessdetermination unit 55 is also configured to generate a candidate policy to enable priority access for aprivileged device to the WLAN. The policy defines changes to a number of operation parameters ofthe WLAN 5.

For example: • Band steering - Moving devices between the available Wi-Fi bands in order to give theprivileged device more airtime. • Quality of Service controls - Altering the relative downstream QoS of the privileged device sothat it gains more airtime than the other devices. • Access control - Blocking access to the WLAN for some devices by disassociating them fromthe band they are on (i.e. kicking them off) devices and not letting them re-associate on that banduntil the congestion has abated.

The combination of WLAN operational parameters are chosen on the basis of the current networkconditions and properties of the privileged device.

In this embodiment, the priority access is not automatically applied to the privileged device and WLAN.This is to allow the context of the user to determine whether prioritised access is required. Forexample, if the user of the privileged device is participating in a video call or watching streaming video,then deterioration to the WLAN will be disruptive and therefore privileged access will be beneficial.However, if the privileged device is only being used for low bandwidth or applications where latencyis not important, for example, sending instant messages, reading web pages or certain file transfers,the user may not consider prioritised access to be required and therefore there is no need to changethe operational parameters of the WLAN. Applying the prioritised access incurs a computing overheadand can potentially affect the performance of all non-privileged devices, so not applying the prioritisedaccess can be beneficial when the user of the privileged device knows that the visiting devices needto do something important.

The prioritisation controller 49 has a device interface 61 to communicate with WLAN devices. Thedevice interface is configured to generate and send a message to the privileged device to ask whetherthe user wishes to have prioritised access. If the device interface 61 receives a response from the userof device 7a indicating that prioritised service is required, then the priority access determination unit55 will apply the generated policy to the configuration of the hub 3 and privileged device 7a to improveservice for the privileged device 7a. The device interface 61 is used to send configuration instructionsto the privileged device 7a and in some cases to the other non-privileged devices connected to theWLAN.

Once a priority access state has been activated, the priority access determination unit 55 updates thedata in the priority state store 63 to indicate that the priority state is active, details of the operational parameters applied in the policy and the identity of the privileged device which is receiving priorityaccess.

In the case where the response message indicates that the user does not want to activate priorityaccess, then no priority access conditions are enabled. An entry is placed in the priority state store 63to indicate that there is no active priority access policy.

In this embodiment, the priority access state is enabled in accordance with the network conditions.Therefore the duration of the priority access is not fixed, but instead determined by a decrease in thenetwork utilisation.

The Wi-Fi throughput measurement monitor 51 and radio performance monitor 53 are configured torun continuously to measure the current state of the Wi-Fi throughput and radio performance.

The priority access determination unit 55 periodically receives the metrics from the Wi-Fi throughputmeasurement monitor 51 and the radio performance monitor 53 and compares the values against adifferent lower threshold stored in the thresholds store 57.

When the combined WLAN activity metrics are determined to be below the thresholds, then there isno need for the prioritised access and so the prioritisation techniques applied by the hub 3 arecancelled or reversed.

Furthermore, if device 7a disconnects from the WLAN, then prioritised access is cancelled and thepriority access determiner unit 55 checks the list of connected devices against the privileged devicelist, to determine the new highest ranking privileged device which in this example is the laptop device7b. Whilst device 7a is disconnected, if the network activity increases above the threshold, then device7b will be offered prioritised access. When device 7a reconnects, the priority access determinationunit 55 will revert to offering device 7a prioritised access.

Flowcharts

Figure 4 shows the operation of the priority access determination unit 85 in the first embodiment. Atregular intervals, the prioritisation controller is arranged to perform the following processing. In thisembodiment, the polling period is 300 seconds to maintain a balance between processing overheadand network response time.

In step si, the priority access determination unit 55 compares the set of devices currently connectedto the WLAN against the device priority list 59 to determine whether any privileged devices arecurrently connected to the WLAN 5.

If there are no privileged devices connected, then a clean-up subroutine is carried out in step s3 ifnecessary. The priority access determination unit 55 checks in step s3 whether any policies are active.If there no active policies, then processing ends.

Alternately, if the priority state store indicates that a policy is active, then in step s5 the policies aredisabled/reversed since any previously deemed privileged device has disconnected from the networkand priority access is no longer required. After step s5 processing moves to step s25 which will bedescribed later.

In the event that step si indicates a privileged device is connected to the WLAN, then processingmoves to step s7 where the Wi-Fi utilisation for the Wi-Fi bands are measured by both the Wi-Fithroughput measurement 51 and radio performance measurement unit 53. These units collect anumber of metrics including: • Per-band metrics o Overall air utilisation for each band o List of associated devices for each band • Per device metrics o Current band o Air utilisation o RSSI of Device o PHY rate (upstream and downstream) o Data rate (upstream and downstream)o Retries (upstream and downstream)

In step s9 the priority access determination unit 55 retrieves various activity thresholds from thethreshold store 57 and compares the measured data against the thresholds. If the current Wi-Fiutilisation value is below the thresholds, then processing also moves to step s3 explained above. Sincethere are connected privileged devices but the network utilisation is below the various thresholds,then any previously applied prioritised access conditions are no longer required and should beremoved/reversed so that the WLAN performs in a conventional manner. After step s3 and possiblys5 processing ends.

However if, in step s9 the utilisation value is above the threshold, then in step sll the highest rankingof the connected privileged devices is identified. In the example above, device/laptop 7a is the highestranking device.

Once identified, processing moves to step sl3 where the priority access determination unit 55 tries togenerate a policy of actions which may improve the performance of the network for the privilegeddevice.

More details for this step are shown in Figure 5.

In step sl31 the Wi-Fi utilisation is again compared against the threshold value, if the threshold is nolonger exceeded, then processing ends.

However, if the threshold is exceeded, then in step sl33 a test is carried out to determine whetherthe privileged device is connected to a band which has high utilisation. If it is not, then processingends.

If the privileged device is connected to a band experiencing high utilisation, then the priority accessdetermination unit 55 will determine whether the throughput for the privileged device can beimproved. In this embodiment, there are a number of operational parameters which can be alteredby the policy: • Band steering o Move other device(s) to a different Wi-Fi band to free up capacity on the congestedband; o Move the privileged device to a different Wi-Fi band with more capacity; • Quality of Service o Raise the priority level of the privileged device's WLAN downstream traffic o Lower the priority level for other devices' WLAN downstream traffic • Access control o Send Wi-Fi Disassociate command to other devices using the same band as theprivileged device and then refuse subsequent connection requests from thedisassociated devices on the band used by the privileged device for a preset periodof time, or until the privileged device disconnects from the WLAN.

Band steering

In step sl35, a test is carried out to determine whether the hub 3 itself supports dual band Wi-Fi,namely operation on both the 2.4Ghz and 5Ghz frequency bands. If the hub does not support dualband Wi-Fi then processing proceeds to step sl47 relating to QoS as will be explained later.

If dual band Wi-Fi is supported by the hub, then in step sl37 the privileged device is tested todetermine whether it supports dual band Wi-Fi. If dual band Wi-Fi is supported by both the hub 3 andthe privileged device then in step sl39, a further test is performed to determine whether the Wi-Fiband which is not used by the privileged device has low utilisation. If there is low utilisation of theother band, then in step sl41, a part of the policy is formed to move the privileged device to the otherband which is not being utilised as heavily. Processing then proceeds to step sl43. In contrast, if instep sl39 the determination is that there is high utilisation on the other band then it would not makesense to move the privileged device to the other band and therefore step sl41 is skipped andprocessing moves directly to step sl43.

In step sl43, a test is performed to see whether other dual band devices are connected to the sameband, or same new band if step sl41 was performed, as the privileged device. This will involve testingeach connected device in a conventional manner. If step sl43 determines that there are dual banddevices on the same band, then processing moves to step sl45 where a policy rule is generated tomove dual band devices to the other band to minimise contention on the privileged device band. Afterthis step, the band steering operating parameter has finished and processing moves to step sl47. Inthe event that there are no other dual band devices on the same band as the privileged device andtherefore processing moves directly to step sl47.

QoS

After the Wi-Fi band steering policy settings have been tested and set in steps sl35 to sl43, the QoSpolicy operating parameter options are tested. In step sl47, the hub 3 is tested to determine whetherit supports QoS options. If the hub does not support QoS controls, then processing moves to the AccessControl policy options which will be described with regard to step sl53 later.

If QoS is supported, in step sl49, the policy is updated with settings to lower the priority of data trafficgenerated by or delivered to non-privileged devices. Next, in step sl51, the policy is updated to raisethe priority level of all upstream and downstream traffic for the privileged device. Processing thenmoves to step sl53.

Access control

In step sl53, the hub 3 is tested to determine whether it supports access control. This access controloperating parameter will bar certain devices from the WLAN in order to decrease the number ofdevices on the WLAN and thereby improve the performance/experience for the remaining devices.

If the hub 3 does not support access control, then processing ends for the policy generation andprocessing returns to Figure 4. Alternatively, if the hub does support access control, in step sl55, the policy settings are updated to implement access control by the hub on some of the devices in theWLAN. This can be implemented in many ways for example by identifying the devices with the lowestutilisation over a set period of time and blocking access. Processing then ends for the policy generationand processing returns to Figure 4.

Returning to Figure 4, after the processing of step sl3 described above and shown in Figure 5, a testis carried out in step sl5 to check whether a policy was successfully devised. If there was no generatedpolicy, then the processing moves to step s25 described later and the current network situation ismaintained.

If a policy has been generated, then in step sl7, the device interface 61 sends a message to theidentified highest ranking connected privileged device to ask the user of the device whether theywould like to enable the priority access mode for their privileged device.

In a basic configuration, the message will provide the identified privileged device with a simple choice,for example: "Wi-Fi congestion detected. Do you wish the AP to improve your network access settings atthe expense of other devices? [yes] / [no]"

For certain privileged devices, the administrator of the WLAN may have specified that theprioritisation controller should interact in an advanced mode. In this case, the message provides theuser with a degree of control in deciding how their network access is improved. For example: "Wi-Fi congestion detected. Select one option: • Move your device to a less congested Wi-Fi band (band steering) • Move the specified device(s) to another Wi-Fi band: o [Connected device 1 ] o [connected device 2] o [connected device N] • Raise your traffic priority level relative to the specified devices: o [Connected device 1 ] o [connected device 2] o [connected device N] • Remove the specified device (s) from the congested Wi-Fi band and deny subseguentaccess while privilege mode active: o [Connected device 1 ] o [connected device 2]o [connected device N]

In the advanced mode, the user is assumed to be more knowledgeable about the network andtherefore the option selected by the user is used as the policy for the system.

There are various ways in which the device interface 61 can communicate with the user of theprivileged device. In this embodiment, to minimise alterations to the privileged devices 7, the deviceinterface 61 is configured to simply email the privileged device since the user is assumed to be activelyusing the privileged device and therefore will have access to an email client on the device. Theselectable message options are configured as links which will result in a response being sent to thehub identifying the user selection option.

In step sl9 the device interface receives a response from the highest ranking privileged device and instep s21 the response message is processed to determine whether the user agrees to prioritisedaccess. As explained above, the context of the user as well as the services active on the privilegeddevice will determine whether prioritised access is required.

If the response indicates that priority access is not required, then in step s25 the priority state store63 is updated and processing ends. However, if the user does require prioritised access, then in steps23 the generated policy settings are applied to the hub 3, the privileged and other non-privilegeddevices on the network. The prioritisation controller 49 configures any QoS and access controloperational parameters on the hub and band steering instructions for the privileged and non-privileged devices are delivered via the device interface 61 to effect those operational parameters ina conventional manner.

In step s25 the priority state store is updated to record changes to the configuration of the WLAN. Theupdates depend on the preceding step of the operation flow chart. • If a new policy is created and applied after step s23, the priority state store 63 is records detailsof the new policy and the associated privileged device; • if, after step s21 the response message indicates that prioritised access was not required, an entry is made in the priority state store 63 to log the refusal and device identity; • after step sl5 if no policy could be devised, then an entry is made in the priority state store 63 to record that a policy could not be generated for that privileged device; and • after step s5, the priority state store 63 is updated to indicate that the previous priority stateis no longer active.

After the priority state store 63 has been updated, the processing for the prioritisation controller endsfor this monitoring period.

With the above processing, the WLAN can respond to network utilisation levels to provide a subset ofthe devices of the network deemed to be privileged devices with the option of improved service.However, the decision of whether or not to implement the improved service is dependent on a userof the privileged device approving the option which may be based on the context of the user.

Although the operation of the prioritisation controller is particularly effective when a large number ofvisiting devices join the WLAN, the operation is equally applicable when there are no visiting deviceson the WLAN but there is high network utilisation between a set of regular WLAN devices or evenbetween a set of privileged devices. In each case the prioritisation controller will determine a policyfor the most privileged device and offer the user of the most privileged device the option to improvenetwork performance for that device at the expense of the other devices.

Alternatives and modifications

In the embodiment, the threshold values for congestion are fixed values. In an alternative, thethresholds have different values at different times of day, or on different days. For example theprivileged device could be prioritised during working hours set by the user or based on the times readfrom an Electronic Programme Guide (EPG) so that certain TV shows get priority for the privilegeddevice.

In the embodiment, the processing to provide priority access is carried out whenever there is anincrease in network traffic which exceeds a threshold. The priority access condition is maintained untilthe network utilisation decreases or when the next polling period of the priority access determinationunit determines that the priority device is no longer connected to the WLAN.

This may lead to periods of time where the device has priority access even if it is no longer needed. Inan alternative, when a device is given priority access conditions, the priority access determination unit starts a clock timer defining the maximum period of time that a device should be provided with priorityaccess.

Similarly, in a further alternative, when a device is provided with priority access, a minimum timer isactivated so that priority access is not removed before the expiry of the minimum period. This is usefulto prevent a large number of messages being sent to the device when access to the WLAN is limiteddue to congestion which may cause the device to disconnect and re-connect due to congestion.

In the embodiment, the device interface is configured to email the user of the privileged device. It willbe clear to the skilled person that other options are possible. In one alternative the hub is arranged touse an HTTP and HTML scheme so that the options are presented in a browser either as an interstitialHTML page, or as an HTTP redirect.

In a further alternative, the device interface uses push notifications. The user devices will requireapplications which have registered with a third party push notification server such as the Google CloudMessaging platform GCM, or the iOS Apple Push Notification Service. When the user interface wishesto send a notification, it creates a hub based HTML page with the notification contents and sends thethird party push notification server a URL to the HTML page. The third party push notification serverwill then forward the notification to the device using a standard push notification mechanism. Uponreceipt of the push notification by the device, a popup message appears on the screen on the devicewhich presents the user with a URL that the user can access in order for the notification HTML pageto be displayed on the device web browser.

In a further alternative, a proprietary system is used whereby a dedicated app is pre-installed on theeach of the priority devices. The app is configured to listen to a predetermined TCP/UDP port and thenotifier is configured to contact priority devices via their predetermined TCP/UDP ports with thenotification. At the recipient user device, the notification is displayed and when the user selects anoption, the devices sends the response back to the notifier via the TCP/UDP port. A further benefit of the dedicated app is that the user of a privileged device can pre-emptively requestprioritised access in anticipation of an increase in network activity. In this way prioritised access canbe enabled before the visiting devices connect or cause a surge in activity, or enabled as soon as theactivity increases.

In the embodiment, the priority access determination unit is configured to identify and offer priorityaccess to the single highest ranking privileged device. In a modification, more than one device can beoffered priority access.

In the embodiment, the prioritised access is offered to privileged Wi-Fi devices, however the similartechniques can be applied in any shared channel network architecture such as Ethernet or anotherwireless network protocol.

Claims (11)

Claims

1. A wireless access point for managing a wireless local area network connected to a plurality ofwireless client devices, comprising: a network controller for controlling operation parameters of the wireless local area network; a data store for storing identity information relating to a set of the plurality of wireless clientdevices which are privileged devices eligible for prioritised access to the wireless local area network;and a network monitor for monitoring performance characteristics of the wireless local areanetwork, wherein, the network monitor is operable to notify the network controller when utilisation ofthe wireless local area network exceeds a threshold level of activity, and in response to the notification, the network controller is operable to: access the data store to determine that at least one privileged device is currentlypresent on the wireless local area network; notify the privileged device that prioritised access to the wireless local area networkis available; process a response from the privileged device; and if the response is indicative of a request for prioritised access, change at least oneoperating parameter of the wireless local area network to provide prioritised accessto the wireless local area network for the privileged device, and wherein. the network monitor is further operable to notify the network controller when the wireless local areanetwork utilisation falls below a second threshold level of activity and in response the networkcontroller is operable to disable the prioritised access for the privileged device.

2. Apparatus according to claim 1, wherein the controller is operable to disable the prioritisedaccess when the privileged device is determined to have disconnected from the wireless local areanetwork.

3. Apparatus according to claim 1 or 2, wherein the controller is operable to generate a policycontaining a set of operating parameters to be changed in order to implement the prioritised access.

4. Apparatus according to any preceding claim where the at least one operating parameterincludes at least one of wireless network band steering, Quality of Service and/or access control.

5. Apparatus according to any preceding claim, wherein different threshold values are used bythe network monitor at different times.

6. A method for operating a wireless access point maintaining a wireless local area network andconnected to a plurality of wireless client devices, at least one of the plurality of wireless client devicesbeing a privileged device, the wireless access point carrying out the steps of: monitoring network utilisation of the wireless local area network; and when the network utilisation is determined to have exceeded a threshold level of activity, accessing a data store storing identity information relating to a set of the plurality ofwireless client devices which are privileged devices eligible for prioritised access to thewireless local area network; determining whether a privileged device is currently active on the data network; notifying the determined privileged device that prioritised access to the data networkis available, processing a response from the privileged device, and if the response is a request for prioritised access, changing at least one operatingparameter of the wireless local area network to provide prioritised access to the wireless localarea network for the privileged device, and where prioritised access for the privileged device has been provided: when the network utilisation falls below a second threshold level of activity, disabling theprioritised access for the privileged device.

7. A method according to claim 6, further comprising determining when the privileged devicehas disconnected from the wireless local area network and disabling the prioritised access.

8. A method according to claim 6 or 7, further comprising generating a policy containing a set ofoperating parameters to be changed in order to implement the prioritised access.

9. A method according to any of claims 6 to 8, where the at least one operating parameterincludes at least one of wireless data network band steering, Quality of Service and/or access control.

10. A method according to any of claims 6 to 9 wherein different threshold values are used atdifferent times.

11. A computer program product carrying processor executable instructions for causing aprogrammable processor to carry out the method according to any of claims 6 to 10.