Wi-Fi Self-Organizing Networks: Challenges and Use Cases

Wireless customers expect to have a guaranteed quality of experience at all times, at any location and through different devices. Wi-Fi has become an access network of preference for service/network providers and customers as well for public and private access. This sets a challenging requirement on next-generation Wi-Fi technology to provide seamless and uniform network operations and customer experience across different Wi-Fi networks. Consequently, the necessity for self-optimization of network and radio frequency segments becomes critical. This article surveys perspectives of Wi-Fi self-optimizing networks (Wi-SON) that has not been presented to date. We address technology and design challenges that shapes Wi-SON as one of the most complex problems. The technology vs. operator challenges are elaborated for a number of different (practically) relevant use cases.