Home WiFi in the COVID Era

The COVID19 pandemic has resulted in disruption of life around the world. One of the significant ways it has changed our lives is the compulsory Work From Home (WFH) across a broad range of industry verticals. As a result, a large part of the workforce is now carrying out their professional duties from home. In addition, schools, colleges and universities have also been forced to use electronic means to impart learning to students. Whether it’s an IT professional accessing a Git repo in the cloud or a student using Zoom to attend an online science class, WiFi is the mostly commonly used wireless access technology in the current scenario. This enforced work/learn from home has put the spotlight on Residential/Home WiFi networks. In the following, we discuss some of the ways Home WiFi is impacted.

Changes in Home WiFi Use

End User Applications

Enterprise WiFi usage is dominated by applications such cloud-hosted Productivity software (e.g. Gmail/Outlook, Google Docs/Microsoft Office) and Communication services HangoutsSlack/Zoom/GotoMeeting etc). In contrast, Home WiFi is primarily meant for personal use with applications such as web browsing/email, streaming audio/video (YouTube, Netflix, Spotify etc), social media applications (FB, IG etc) communication apps (FaceTime, WhatsApp etc). With a large part of the population staying at home due to the pandemic, applications which were typically used in the Enterprise are now also being consumed over Home WiFi. Some of these applications need consistently good QoS from both throughput and latency/jitter perspectives. The end user QoE for these applications may be adversely affected in the presence of high-bandwidth applications such as Netflix and Amazon Prime Video. This will be felt by users whose Internet bandwidth was constrained already. 

For context, someone with a high-quality, 100Mbps internet connection might not even notice a download speed reduction of 35% — a typical 1080P video stream requires just 6Mbps and fits well within the resulting 65Mbps. However, someone with a lower-quality connection, say 10Mbps, might notice some quality degradation: their typical 1080P movie might now automatically adjust down to 720P to fit well within the resulting 6.5 Mbps.

Source: How COVID-19 is affecting internet performance

In addition, as these applications are often hosted in the Enterprise data center, there is a need for VPN connections to be setup to the Corporate network over the Home WiFi connection. The charts below show VPN usage from February 1 to April 19.

Source: Sandvine, Global Internet Phenomena COVID-19 Spotlight: VPN's Rise During Work From Home

Another point to consider here is the growing use of a wide variety of applications that enable e-learning are being used over Home WiFi , with schools and universities opting for online classes. 

Daily WiFi Usage Patterns

Enterprise and Home WiFi usage patterns are complementary in nature, i.e., in daytime, Enterprise WiFi usage is high and Home WiFi usage is low. The reverse is true for mornings and evenings. The two charts in the top row of the figure below show typical usage patterns of Home and Enterprise WiFi in the pre-COVID times. The chart on the bottom left shows Internet Data usage patterns while the chart on bottom-right is the combined usage.

Source: Akamai, The OTT Challenge

Interestingly, with people staying indoors, there’s a perceptible increase in WiFi usage (Source: NCTA, Ericsson). Therefore, we can consider the combined traffic pattern as an indication of Home WiFi usage during the pandemic. This is borne out from publicly available data as well. 

Client Devices

The change in daily usage patterns is not just limited to the traffic but also reflected in more devices connecting to the Home WiFi network. There are two distinct aspects to consider. First, more clients connected to the Home WiFi network at the same time. Second, longer sessions for the connected devices. The net effect is that the WiFi network is more active and the different links may not be of the same quality because clients are distributed across the home. Consider a typical day where both parents log-in to WiFi for carrying out their professional duties while the kids are attending online classes using separate devices in different rooms. In some homes, there would also be grandparents accessing the WiFi for personal use, for example FaceTime with relatives/friends using an iPad or watching OTT content on their phones.

Behavioral Patterns

The changes in home WiFi usage are not limited to applications, traffic patterns etc. Reasons such as need for privacy and/or quietude while working/studying, WiFi users tend to spread out to different parts of the house. This may lead to performance issues if the coverage is not good in all parts of the house. In addition, if the WiFi network is not reliable, some users may rely on 4G hotspots during critical situations such as conference calls or online lectures. While this may alleviate the specific user’s problem, it adds one more unmanaged WIFi device in the RF environment.

Adapting Home WiFi to the COVID Era

The changes in Home WiFi usage highlighted above call for a fresh look at Home WiFi. With most people expected to stay indoors for a relatively long time in at least the next 6-12 months, and the growing realization across the corporate world that WFH may become the norm instead of the exception, there is a need for a reliable and robust Home WiFi network with consistent Quality of Experience. Initial studies show that the new Home WiFi usage patterns are impacting the end user QoE. According to a study by Veego:

• WiFi neighbor interference more than doubled, no doubt due to the increased overlapping in times of internet usage between households in close proximity—your Netflix is interfering with my Fortnite.
• Connectivity failures occurred primarily because people in Corona-induced isolation within the home are trying to reach their internet router from remote rooms where they haven’t used connected devices before. Sometimes, these rooms do not receive a good, consistent WiFi signal.

Increase in traffic volumes has led to slower Internet speeds, further exacerbating the problem.

Source: https://www.fastly.com/blog/how-covid-19-is-affecting-internet-performance

In the following, we highlight a few aspects that are key to ensuring that Home WiFi is able to address the challenges.

RF Design

A good quality Home WiFi network requires good coverage across the entire home. Homes with two or more bedrooms may require more than one WiFi AP to provide good coverage. RF planning has traditionally focussed on Enterprise WiFi networks but with multi-AP deployments in homes, it will also play an important role in ensuring carpet coverage. Running cables across the home to connect multiple APs for better coverage is not always possible, especially due to aesthetic reasons. In some cases, repeaters can help improve coverage but they often make the situation worse because of self-interference. Hence, mesh-based multi-AP deployments will be preferable.

To meet the QoS requirements of the wide variety of applications being used, it would make sense to use 80MHz channels in the 5GHz band, wherever it is feasible from a regulatory perspective. With only a limited number of 80MHz channels in the 5GHz, the Home WiFi network needs a good Automatic Channel Selection algorithm to select the optimal channels. The ability to react quickly to RF congestion by switching channels dynamically would help improve the overall end user QoE.

As the intent is to cover the maximum area with a minimum number of APs, operating APs at the maximum power will improve the overall coverage scenario. Given that the Home WiFi scenario is going to be multi-vendor, automatic Transmit Power Control may be largely ineffective.

It must be noted that a typical user does not have the technical knowledge to undertake RF design. In fact, for the average user, Home WiFi network configuration is limited to setting the SSID name and configuring the WiFi password. Hence, AP vendors and ISPs will have to provide self-configuring and self-optimizing solutions to address the Home WiFi RF design challenge.

WiFi Technology Upgrade

The increase in WiFi usage, in terms of simultaneously connected clients and traffic intensity, means that Home WiFi has to provide better performance from both coverage and capacity perspectives. With WiFi 6 APs already in the market and WiFi 6E devices expected to be available early next year, an upgrade from legacy WiFi to next-generation WiFi will help address the capacity requirement. Features such as OFDMA and MU-MIMO will be crucial in supporting the increased number of client devices. Further, with the same scenario being repeated across all the homes in multi-dwelling units, Spatial Reuse can play an important role in ensuring that spectrum is used efficiently. 

Network Management

Home WiFi APs are generally managed by the user by a web-based interface. Unlike Enterprise WiFi which is managed by network engineers, most Home WiFi users are not well-versed with WiFi technology. Hence, most of the time, Home WiFi APs end up using the default configurations with some minor customizations like setting the SSID name and PSK. However, with increasing dependence on the Home WiFi network for business critical applications and home-based learning tools, a stronger case can be made for Managed Home WiFi. 

To some extent, this trend already started with app-based multi-AP home WIFi solutions from vendors like Plume, Eero (Amazon), Netgear Orbi, etc., which helped users figure out the appropriate locations to deploy the APs. These solutions also include support for RRM mechanisms such as auto channel/power selection, client steering, roaming etc. 

With multiple use cases of the same network, there will be a need to segregate personal and ‘work’ devices. This can be done by using different SSIDs with different access control policies. There might also be the need to prioritize airtime for professional use at least during the typical working hours. In scenarios where the employer is paying fully/partly for the Internet service, it might place certain restrictions on how the service is used. This is akin to Ola/Uber vouchers provided to employees for commuting from home to workplace with restrictions on type of travel. These considerations suggest a need for advanced network management features.

Security and Access Control

A majority of the Home WiFi networks tend to use WPA/WPA2 with PSK as it's easy to set up and use. Quite often, the use of authentication is primarily to prevent others from using the network and not so much the data security itself. However, as the workload shifts from Enterprise WiFi to Home WiFi, security of the Home WiFi network becomes more important. WPA3 will play an important role in enhancing the overall security of the network. 

In some scenarios, Home WiFi networks may need to be configured with .1x security for enhanced security. This will require the use of the enterprise-grade Remote Workplace Access Points (RWAP) that can not only provide .1x support but also establish secure tunnels between the AP and Enterprise network. With Enterprise-grade APs deployed in the home, it essentially becomes a Managed Home WiFi Network where policies can be configured centrally and applied to all RWAP devices with some degree of device-specific customization.

Conclusion

Just as the COVID-19 pandemic has disrupted almost all aspects of human life, it has also impacted WiFi network usage patterns. In particular, there is a greater reliance on Home WiFi networks for professional use as well as remote learning. As a result, new usage patterns and user behaviors are emerging leading to a greater scrutiny of Home WiFi networks from the perspective of security, reliability and manageability. This will eventually lead to a new set of best practices for Home WiFi and also enable WiFi AP vendors and ISPs to create market differentiation with innovative features to handle the new requirements.