Wislow: a Wi-Fi Network Performance Troubleshooting Tool for End Users
WiSlow: A Wi-Fi Network Performance Troubleshooting Tool for End Users Kyung-Hwa Kim⇤, Hyunwoo Nam† and Henning Schulzrinne⇤ ⇤Department of Computer Science, Columbia University, New York, NY †Department of Electrical Engineering, Columbia University, New York, NY Abstract—Slow Internet connectivity is often caused by poor not depend on a specific network adapter such as the Atheros Wi-Fi performance. The main reasons of such performance degra- chipsets, which were used to achieve similar goals in other dation include channel contention and non-Wi-Fi interference. studies [5], [6]. These features enable WiSlow to run on Although these problem sources can be easily removed in many common end-user machines. cases once they are discovered, it is difficult for end users to identify the sources of such interference. First, we investigate behaviors of 802.11 networks such as retries, frame check sequence (FCS) errors, packet loss, and We investigated the characteristics of different sources that can degrade Wi-Fi performance, and developed WiSlow, a bit rate adaption, which can be observed on ordinary operating software tool that diagnoses the root causes of poor Wi-Fi systems. Our experimental results show that the statistical performance using user-level network probes, and leveraging peer patterns of the above variables vary depending on the problem collaboration to identify the physical location of these causes. sources. For example, with the interference that caused by WiSlow uses two main methods: packet loss analysis and 802.11 non-Wi-Fi devices, we observed a greater number of retried ACK number analysis. The accuracy of WiSlow exceeds 90% packets, fewer FCS errors, and larger variations in the bit rates when the sources are close to Wi-Fi devices.
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