Outsourcing Home AP Management to the Cloud through an Open API

Networking at homes continue to get complex over time requiring users to configure and manage them. Perhaps the most common among home devices today are wireless Access Points (APs) that are supplied by a number of diverse vendors — Linksys, Netgear, DLink, TrendNet, Belkin, to name a few. In fact, wireless APs increasingly serve as the true gateway for the Internet inside a home. A plethora of WiFi-capable devices access Internet-based services through them, e.g., laptops, tablets and other handhelds, game controllers (XBox, Wii), media streaming devices (Apple TV, Google TV, Roku), and many more. Given its central role in these home networks, the performance and experience of users in the home depend centrally on efficient and dynamic configuration of these APs. In this paper, we argue for a a simple vendor-neutral API that should be implemented by home wireless APs to enable a cloud-based management service that enables coordination, provides better performance, and reduces the burden on users. A cloud-based management service and a vendor-neutral API: In many dense urban environments, a large number of APs and their associated clients are in range and cause interference to each other. For example, each home AP in our deployment had 20 60 neighboring SSIDs . These environments are further challenged by many other wireless devices and appliances, e.g., Bluetooth headsets, analog cordless handsets, wireless security cameras, and even microwave ovens, that can also operate in the same spectrum and cause further interference. Individual home users neither have the sophistication nor the patience to frequently tune their wireless APs into some efficient configuration parameters to mitigate the impact of interference. In our proposed service, called COAP (Coordination framework for Open APs), participating wireless APs are configured to securely connect to a cloud-based controller (Figure 1, left). The controller provides all necessary management service that can be operated by a third-party (potentially distinct from the individual ISPs). In the context of large apartment building, we envision that the apartment management contract with a single controller service (e.g., through a fixed annual fee) and all residents are asked to utilize the designated controller service within the building. This service would be no different than many other utilities distributed to residents, e.g., water, electricity, etc., which is arranged by the apartment management. Individual residents can also pick different controller services to realize many of our proposed benefits. However, some advanced features, e.g., interference management and mitigation, are better served if neighboring APs participate through the same service. The concept of centralized management in wireless environments is not particularly new. Most enterprise WLAN solutions today (including some recent SDN-style efforts [3]) adopt this approach for managing a set of homogeneous APs in a uniform and coordinated manner. Further, a few commercial solutions, e.g., Meraki [1], provide vendor-specific proprietary cloud-managed service for APs in enterprise environments. In this paper, we argue for an open, vendor neutral API for home APs that should be supported by each AP manufacturer to allow third-party controller services to be designed, implemented, and deployed for RF management of home APs. We believe this approach is especially important in home environments where each wireless neighborhood has a diverse set of APs. Unlike enterprise environments, homogeneity in such environments is likely hard to achieve. Furthermore, with the growing demands on in-home wireless networks, especially with the dominance and growth in usage of high bandwidth media streaming, the need for coordination between neighbors will continue to grow.