Wi-Fi is extremely popular and the preferred network access mechanism, especially in indoor spaces, due to its support for high data rates (IEEE 802.11ac/ax standards supports PHY rates greater than 1 Gbps), low cost, ease of deployment and operation. Nowadays, modern home is rapidly becoming a technologically dense environment, making network connectivity a basic necessity for people of all ages. Alarming use of bandwidth-hungry activities such as video streaming, gaming and video conferencing, call for the need for fast and reliable indoor network access. As global trends for remote work continue to rise, home Wi-Fi network has once again become an exciting paradigm with focus on whole home coverage, QoS and security. In this talk, we seek to present our study on Wi-Fi coverage and performance in typical Indian homes under a variety of network and radio configurations. The study permits us to understand WLAN operations and to appreciate infrastructure deployment strategies for whole home coverage with throughput guarantees.

We note that coverage and performance of IEEE 802.11 WLANs critically depends on a number of factors including IEEE 802.11 standards and radio capabilities of the AP and client devices, radio configuration including the band and bandwidth of operation, wireless channel quality and interference (both Wi-Fi and non Wi-Fi). In addition, quality of hardware (e.g.,processor), software (e.g., link adaptation algorithms) and design (e.g., antenna and RF design) are known to significantly affect the performance of the Wi-Fi link and the network. So, for our study, we preferred in-site measurements (for performance evaluation) with a mix of client devices, in a variety of network, channel and propagation environments. We measured coverage and throughput performance in homes of different sizes and types (1/2/3/4 BHK and duplex homes), in 2.4 GHz (11n) and 5 GHz (11ac) band, and with 1x1 and 2x2 client devices of different make and price range. We use these measurements to characterize Wi-Fi performance in a variety of network and channel configurations, and to make recommendations on network architecture, AP placement and radio configuration for 100 Mbps coverage in Indian homes. We conclude the discussion with a simulator based evaluation of our experiment setup and deployment strategies.