Information Exchange for Enhanced Network Selection

Current devices use a network selection policy that is mostly driven by the physical layer, choosing the point of attachment with the highest Received Signal Strength Indicator (RSSI). Unfortunately for 802.11 networks, RSSI is not a good indicator of actual network performance as it is normally the bandwidth to the Internet and not the wireless signal conditions which dictates the quality of service a user might experience. Worse, the AP may belong to a pay service which renders it inaccessible to the user. MOBIX is a system which leverages on the fact that nodes on the move will meet other nodes who will be able to share conditions of networks they have recently used. MOBIX exchanges reports with other nodes it encounters using a short-range communication channel such as Bluetooth. Our simulation results show that exchanging throughput information resulted in 70% success rate over relying on RSSI measurements alone. Using our power measurements, we show that we can achieve energy savings of more than 80%.