A QoS harmonization strategy for Wi-Fi and Cellular Networks Convergence

Beyond 5G networks will not only present an evolution of the current 5G standards, but they will also provision a path for increased convergence with other Radio Access Technologies (RATs). The Wi-Fi Alliance and 3GPP through their standards releases have presented a lucrative inter-working opportunity for the same. Such a convergence will help to enhance the Quality of Experience (QoE) for the users. However, one of the most important challenge towards a more converged scenario is the provision of uniform Quality of Service (QoS) across cellular and Wi-Fi RATs. Hence in this paper, to the best of our knowledge, we propose the first attempt in literature to homogenize Wi-Fi and 5G QoS. Specifically, a method is presented to map Wi-Fi QoS parameters to 5G QoS Identifiers (5QI). The presented results, which show a clear possibility of the 5G and Wi-Fi QoS harmonization, have been obtained via a real testbed setup.