WOLT: Auto-Configuration of Integrated Enterprise PLC-WiFi Networks

Power Line Communication (PLC) based WiFi extenders can improve WiFi coverage in homes and enterprises. Unlike in traditional WiFi networks which use an underlying high data rate Ethernet backhaul, a PLC backhaul may not support high data rates. Specifically, our measurements show that arbitrarily affiliating users to PLC-WiFi extenders or based on their WiFi channel qualities alone may lead to poor network performance due to the differences in PLC link capacities. Thus, in this paper we build a framework, WOLT, to solve the problem of assigning users to the appropriate PLC-WiFi extenders to increase the aggregate network throughput in an enterprise setting, where one may expect a relatively large number of power outlets. WOLT accounts for both the qualities of the two concatenated links viz., the PLC and WiFi links. It hinges on estimating the best capacity offered by the PLC links, and accounting for these while assigning users. It incorporates a polynomial-time algorithm that assigns only a subset of the users to maximize the aggregate throughput on the PLC links, and then assigns the remaining users such that the degradation in the aggregate throughput is minimized. WOLT is evaluated through simulations and real testbed experiments with commodity PLCWiFi extenders, and improves aggregate throughput by more than 2.5x compared to a greedy user association baseline.