Configure QoS Settings

Applies To: Wi-Fi Cloud-managed Access Points (AP125, AP225W, AP325, AP327X, AP420)

The priority of various types of traffic is defined by QoS (Quality of Service). QoS ensures that applications or traffic requiring higher priority gets the required priority. The service guarantee is met by allocating adequate bandwidth based on the QoS priority.

The service guarantee is imperative for streaming multimedia applications such as voice over IP, video, and online games. It is necessary to define the priority when the network bandwidth is shared for such applications. You must define the QoS parameters if you are using the SSID for such applications.

You can specify whether the admission control parameters configured in the device template applied to the device must be enforced for the network.

The Wi-Fi multimedia (WMM) Admission Control settings configured for the radio override the QoS Settings configured in the SSID.

If you configure the radio in 11n mode, Wi-Fi multimedia (WMM) is always enabled because WMM is mandatory in 11n mode. In 11n mode, if the QoS check box is not selected, the system uses the default QoS parameters.

The default QoS settings are:

  • SSID priority is voice
  • Priority type is ceiling
  • Downstream mapping is DSCP
  • Upstream marking is enabled and the value is 802.1p marking

The system uses the user-configured QoS settings if the QoS check box  is selected.

To configure QoS settings:

  1. Select the QoS check box and define your own QoS settings for Wi-Fi multimedia on the SSID profile.
  2. Specify voice, video, best effort, or background as the SSID Priority depending on your requirement.
  3. Select Priority Type as Fixed if all traffic for this SSID has to be transmitted at the selected priority irrespective of the priority indicated in the 802.1p or IP header. Select Ceiling if traffic for this SSID can be transmitted at priorities equal to or lower than the selected priority.
  4. Select the Downstream Mapping option if the priority type is Ceiling. The priority is extracted from the selected field (802.1p, DSCP or TOS) and mapped to the wireless access category for the downstream traffic subject to a maximum of the selected  SSID Priority. For the downstream mappings, the mapping depends on the first 3 bits (class selector) of the DSCP value, TOS value, or 802.1p access category. The only exception will be DSCP value 46 which will be mapped to the WMM access category Voice.
  5. Select the Upstream marking option. The incoming wireless access category is mapped to a priority subject to a maximum of the selected SSID priority and set in the 802.1p header and the IP header as selected.
  6. Save the settings.

This table describes the downstream mapping:

802.1p Class of Service

802.11e/WMM access category

0 (Background)

1 (Background)

1 (Best Effort)

0 (Best Effort)

2 (Excellent Effort)

3 (Best Effort)

3 (Critical Apps)

4 (Video)

4 (Video)

5 (Video)

5 (Voice)

6 (Voice)

6 (Internetwork Ctrl)

7 (Voice)

7 (Network Ctrl)

7 (Voice)

802.11e/WMM access category, and the corresponding 802.1p Class of Service and DSCP value used for upstream marking. If 802.1p marking is enabled, the 802.11e/WMM access category maps to the corresponding 802.1p Class of Service. If DSCP/TOS marking is enabled, the 802.11e access category maps to the corresponding DSCP value.

802.11e/WMM access category

802.1p Class of Service

 DSCP

0

1

0

1

0

10

2

0

18

3

2

0

4

3

26

5

4

34

6

5

46

7

6

48