A utility based access point selection method for IEEE 802.11 wireless networks with enhanced quality of experience

Over the past ten years, many solutions have been proposed to address the problem of access point selection in IEEE 802.11 Wi-Fi networks. The standard, which recommends that user devices select an access point based on received signal strength (RSS) has many shortcomings and leads to poor performance. Many of the solutions proposed lead to better performance under some circumstances and with a particular goal in mind. However, in general, each solution has shortcomings as well. In this paper, techniques in access point selection are surveyed dating back to 2002. These approaches are compared and classified, and the problems and limitations are identified. Lastly, a utility-based method which is proposed which is generalized and may take into account a wide range of interests and goals. The performance of the proposed utility-based approach is evaluated with some preliminary simulations in ns3.