Bandwidth sentinel

Abstract

Minimum guaranteed wireless network bandwidth is provided to client network devices by monitoring the performance of network connections to identify client network devices experiencing network congestion. Congested network connections are then analyzed to determine the source of the network congestion. Depending upon the source of the network congestion, an embodiment of the invention may undertake steps to either improve the quality of the network connection or to mitigate the impact of this network connection on other network connections. High quality network connections may be allocated additional bandwidth, airtime, or other resources to reduce the network congestion. Low quality network connections are not allocated additional bandwidth, airtime, or other resources. Instead, the impact of this network connection on the other network connections is mitigated. Additionally, the low quality network connection may be transferred to another wireless networking device that may be able to provide a better quality network connection.

Description

BACKGROUND

The present invention relates to the field of communication networks, and in particular to the systems and methods for ensuring the provision of minimum wireless network bandwidth to wireless network devices. Communications networks allow computers and other electronic devices to exchange data. Wireless networks, which exchange data without wires, typically using radio waves, are popular with users due to the ability to send and receive data almost anywhere within the physical coverage area of the network. This allows users to access communication networks, including local area networks, organization or company intranets, virtual private networks, and wide area networks, such as the Internet, anywhere within the physical coverage area of the wireless networks.

Networking devices may handle packets generated by and directed to large numbers of clients over the same interface. The bandwidth or data communications capacity of networking devices limits the amount of data or the rate of network packets passing through network devices. The limits on bandwidth are particularly acute in network devices including wireless network interfaces. If the bandwidth limit of a networking device is reached or exceeded by its clients network traffic, packets may be delayed or dropped. Depending on the type of data being communicated over the network, these traffic disruptions caused by reaching or exceeding bandwidth limit of a networking device may adversely affect the performance of applications on a client. For example, clients receiving voice or streaming video data may be adversely affected by even small delays or losses of packets.

Because of the limits on network device bandwidth, many network devices include quality of service (QoS) functionality. Quality of service functionality allows network administrators to provide different priority for packets or other network data based on factors such as the associated client, user, client application, or data flow. Typically, users, clients, or applications are assigned to different quality of service profiles. Each quality of service profile specifies a quality of service parameters to associated packets or other network data. Networking devices use the scheduling weights to prioritize packet traffic and potentially guarantee a minimum level of performance to some or all of the network data flows.

Unfortunately, there are situations in which a wireless network device cannot provide a minimum level of performance to some or all of its associated network traffic flows. This may be occur for a number of reasons, including RF interference or a client device that is malfunctioning, mis-configured, or near the limit of its reception range. In these situations, many types of network traffic prioritization or compensation will have little or no effect of the network connection performance; thus, allocating additional bandwidth, airtime, or other network resources to these network connections is wasteful. However, because prior QoS functions do not attempt to diagnose the cause of network congestion, they waste network resources on attempting to improve the performance of network connections in these situations.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

The invention will be described with reference to the drawings, in which:

FIG. 1 illustrates an example system suitable for implementing embodiments of the invention;

FIG. 2 illustrates a method of operation of a bandwidth sentinel according to an embodiment of the invention; and

FIG. 3 illustrates an example computer system suitable for implementing an embodiment of the invention.

SUMMARY

An embodiment of the invention attempts to provide minimum guaranteed wireless network bandwidth to client network devices, such as user computers, mobile wireless devices, and other devices including wireless network interfaces for exchanging data, by monitoring the performance of network connections to identify client network devices experiencing network congestion while utilizing network bandwidth below a minimum guaranteed bandwidth or airtime usage. Each of these network connections are then analyzed to determine the source of the network congestion. Depending upon the source of the network congestion, an embodiment of the invention may undertake steps to either improve the quality of the network connection or to mitigate the impact of this network connection on other network connections.

For example, in some situations, the network connection has a relatively high quality. In these situations, an embodiment of the invention may allocate additional bandwidth, airtime, or other resources to this network connection to reduce the network congestion.

In another example, in some situations, the network connection has a relative low quality, due to factors such as RF interference, or a client device that is malfunctioning, mis-configured, or near the limit of its reception range. In these situations, allocating additional bandwidth, airtime, or other network resources to these network connections will have little or no effect of the network connection performance. Thus, an embodiment of the invention does not waste additional resources on these types of network connections. Instead, an embodiment of the invention mitigates the impact of this network connection on the other network connections provided by this wireless networking device. Additionally, an embodiment of the invention may transfer the low quality network connection to another wireless networking device that may be able to provide a better quality network connection.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION

FIG. 1 illustrates an example system 100 suitable for implementing embodiments of the invention. The system includes client wireless network devices 105, which are electronic devices including wireless network interfaces for exchanging data. Examples of client network devices 105 include desktop user computers 105a, portable user computer 105b, personal digital assistants 105c, smartphone or other mobile device capable of accessing wireless networks 105d, and tablet computer 105e. The system 100 can interface with any type of electronic device, such as a thin-client computer, Internet-enabled mobile telephone, mobile Internet access device, electronic book, or personal digital assistant, capable of accessing wireless communication networks. Although system 100 is shown with five client wireless network devices 105, any number of user computers can be supported.

The client wireless network devices 105 establish network connections 107 with one or more wireless access points 110. For example, client wireless network devices 105a and 105b establish wireless network connections 107a and 107b, respectively, with wireless access point 110a. Similarly, client wireless network devices 105c and 105d establish wireless network connections 107c and 107d, respectively, with wireless access point 110b and client wireless network device 105e establishes wireless network connection 107e with wireless access point 110c. Network connections 107 include the physical and/or logical communications channels between client wireless network devices 105 and the wireless access points 110. The client wireless network devices 105 and wireless access points 110 may use any standard or proprietary wireless networking technologies and/or protocols known in the art, including one or more of the IEEE 802.11 family of wireless networking standards.

Wireless access points 110 may be connected via wired or wireless networks with other local-area network devices, including one or more network switches 115, one or more server computers, databases, and/or data storage 120, and a router and/or firewall device 125. Additionally, the router and/or firewall device may be connected with a wide-area network 130, such as the internet.

An embodiment of the invention includes a network device including at least one wireless network interface, such as a wireless access point, including a bandwidth sentinel to attempt to provide client network devices, such as user computers, mobile wireless devices, and other electronic devices including wireless network interfaces for exchanging data, with minimum guaranteed bandwidth usage. FIG. 2 illustrates a method 200 of operation of a bandwidth sentinel according to an embodiment of the invention. Step 205 identifies congested network connections. In an embodiment, step 205 identifies network connections that are suffering excessive queuing backlog and that have actual bandwidth/airtime usage below the minimum guaranteed bandwidth/airtime usage. These network connections are referred to as bandwidth sentinel candidate network connections.

In an embodiment, a wireless network interface, such as a wireless access point, includes a quality of service (QoS) module. The QoS module is responsible for allocating the wireless network bandwidth of the wireless network interface among one or more client network devices connected with the wireless network interface via wireless network connections. Embodiments of the QoS module may use any bandwidth allocation or scheduling technique known in the art, including token bucket allocation techniques. In an embodiment, the QoS module maintains one or more queues for each network connection and associated client network device. Each queue buffers or temporarily stores data, for example in the form of network packets, directed to a connected client network device until it can be transmitted via the appropriate wireless network connection.

In an embodiment of step 205, the QoS module identifies bandwidth sentinel candidate network connections as network connections having backlogged queues and using less than their minimum guaranteed wireless network bandwidth and/or airtime. In an embodiment, a network connection's queue or queues are identified as backlogged if the queue depth is above an overall queue depth average threshold. Embodiments of the invention may determine the average queue depth threshold as the product of the minimum desired guaranteed bandwidth and the maximum transmission delay for the wireless network connection. Embodiments of the invention may set different threshold values for each connected client network device, allowing network performance to be tailored to the needs and priorities of different applications and users.

Once one or more bandwidth sentinel candidate network connections have been identified, an embodiment of the invention determines whether the backlog is due to poor network connections or to a lack of network bandwidth. To do this, step 210 evaluates the quality of bandwidth sentinel candidate network connections. A wireless network interface may include a wireless network interface driver module that supervises the operation of the wireless network interface hardware. In an embodiment of method 200, the wireless network interface driver module is adapted to evaluate the quality of a network connection associated with a bandwidth sentinel candidate client network device and identify potential wireless network connection problems.

In an embodiment, the wireless network interface driver module monitors the wireless network connections of one or more connected client network devices using measurements including client network device TX/RX bit rate usage; TX/RX retries (for example on per bit rate basis); radio PHY type, and received signal strength indication (RSSI).

In an embodiment of step 210, the wireless network interface driver module receives a selection of one or more bandwidth sentinel candidate network connections from the QoS module. An embodiment of the wireless network interface driver module evaluates the quality of the network connections associated with the selection of bandwidth sentinel candidate network connections. In a further embodiment, this evaluation may classify network connections into two or more quality categories, for example “good” quality connections or “bad” quality connections. In another example of this embodiment, more than two quality categories may be used to identify network connections experiencing congestion for different specific reasons, such as separate quality categories for network connections with high interference, low signal strength, or a mis-configured client network device.

Embodiments of the wireless network interface driver module may use a formula, heuristic, weighting, and/or scoring scheme to evaluate the quality of network connections. For example, the evaluation of wireless network connection quality may be based on wireless network connection attributes including TX/RX bit rate usage; TX/RX retries (for example on per bit rate basis); RSSI; and its radio PHY type. An embodiment of the wireless network interface driver module can evaluate one or more wireless network connection attributes to determine a quality score for a wireless network connection A further embodiment of the invention may evaluate wireless network connection attributes over a period of time, for example 5 seconds, to determine the quality of the wireless network connection.

One example of a formula used to determine a quality score for a wireless network connection in step 210 is as follows:

$\mathrm{Quality\_Score}=\sum ^n\left(\mathrm{TXRateScore}\left[k\right]\times {\mathrm{TX}}_{\mathrm{RXRateSuccess}\left[k\right]}\times {\mathrm{TX}}_{\mathrm{RXRateUsage}\left[k\right]}\right),$ where the TXRateScore is defined as the bit-rate divided by 1000 (e.g. 54 Mb/s has a TXRateScore of 54,000), the TX_{RXRateSuccess} is defined as

${\mathrm{TX}}_{\mathrm{RXRateSuccess}\left[k\right]}=\frac{{\mathrm{TX}}_{\mathrm{RXSuccess}\left[k\right]}}{{\mathrm{TX}}_{\mathrm{RXSuccess}\left[k\right]}+{\mathrm{TX}}_{\mathrm{RXretries}\left[k\right]}},$ and the TX_RXRateUsage may be determined directly.

An embodiment of the wireless network interface driver module may compare this quality score with one or more benchmark quality scores to assign each wireless network connection to a quality category. In an embodiment, different PHY types (e.g. different wireless network interface types) may have different benchmark quality scores. In a further embodiment, the quality scores of one or more network connections may be monitored over time to determine a statistical distribution of the range of quality scores. One or more benchmark quality scores may be determined based on a desired quantile within this distribution of quality scores. For example, a benchmark quality score for a typical wireless network connection may be selected as the median or 50th percentile quality score value in the distribution of quality scores. In another example, a benchmark quality score for a performance critical wireless network connection (such as for a mission-critical application or a high priority user) may be selected as a quality score greater than the median quality score (e.g. the 75th percentile). In another example, a benchmark quality score for a non-critical wireless network connection (such as for a guest user in a network) may be selected as a quality score less than the median quality score (e.g. the 25th percentile).

The wireless network interface driver module then returns the results of this evaluation, such as the classifications of the wireless network connections associated with the selection of bandwidth sentinel candidate network connections. Based on the results of this evaluation, an embodiment of the QoS module may modify its bandwidth and/or airtime allocation to one or more client network devices.

Decision block 215 evaluates the quality scores of the bandwidth sentinel candidate network connections. For bandwidth sentinel candidate network connections having good quality network connections, as determined by an assigned category, quality score, or other indicator, an embodiment of method 200 performs step 220 to improve the performance of the network connection. Embodiments of step 220 may attempt to improve the wireless network connection performance by taking actions including: attempting to allocate more wireless network interface airtime and/or more wireless network interface bandwidth to these bandwidth sentinel candidate network connections (taking some bandwidth and/or airtime away from other normally operating network connections); using cooperative load balancing to allow other network devices, such as other wireless access points, to provide wireless network connections to one or more client network devices, thereby relieving the network device of the burden of providing wireless network connections to some of its client network devices; sending a message or notification to a log, management application, or system administrator; and/or de-associating one or more client network devices from the network device, thereby relieving the network device of the burden of providing wireless network connections to some of its client network devices.

In an example of step 220, the QoS module may increase the bandwidth and/or airtime allocated to a bandwidth sentinel candidate network connection. Allocating additional wireless network bandwidth to a wireless network connection increases the maximum potential data rate. Allocating additional wireless network airtime to a wireless network connection enables the network device to retransmit lost network packets, which increases the actual data rate but not necessarily the maximum potential data rate.

In one embodiment, the QoS module may increase the number and/or rate of tokens assigned to this network connection in a token bucket allocation scheme. For example, the QoS module may increase the size of one or more token buckets associated with the wireless network connection of the client network device. The size of the token bucket may be increased by a predetermined amount or percentage (e.g. a 10% increase of the current token bucket size). In a further embodiment, the size of the token bucket may be limited to a maximum token bucket size value. If the token bucket size reaches its maximum size value, in an embodiment of step 220, the QoS module sends an indicator that the size limit has been reached, such as an event notification or trap, to a management module. The indicator may include information identifying the affected client network device and/or diagnostic information, including, for example, a client network device MAC address, the desired guaranteed wireless network connection bandwidth, and the actual wireless network connection bandwidth.

Conversely, if decision block 215 determines that one or more of the bandwidth sentinel candidate network connections has a low quality network connection, as determined by an assigned category, quality score, or other indicator, an embodiment of method 200 performs step 225 to mitigate the impact of this low quality network connection on the performance of other network connections provided by this network device. Embodiments of step 225 may attempt to mitigate the impact of network connections with connectivity problems on the other network connections provided by this network device by taking actions including: using cooperative load balancing to allow other network devices, such as other wireless access points, to provide wireless network connections to one or more client network devices, thereby relieving the network device of the burden of providing wireless network connections to some of its client network devices; sending a message or notification to a log, management application, or system administrator; and/or de-associating one or more client network devices from the network device, thereby relieving the network device of the burden of providing wireless network connections to some of its client network devices.

In an example of step 225, the QoS module or any other module may attempt to compensate for the bad network connection, for example using cooperative load balancing to transfer the bad quality wireless network connection from the current wireless access point to a different network device, such as a different wireless access point, that may be able to provide the client network device with a better quality connection. In a further embodiment, the QoS module sends an indicator of the bad quality wireless network connection, such as an event notification or trap, to a management module. The indicator may include information identifying the affected client network device and/or diagnostic information, including, for example, a client network device MAC address, the desired guaranteed wireless network connection bandwidth, and the actual wireless network connection bandwidth.

As described above, embodiments of method 200 may utilize more than two quality categories in evaluating network connections. For these embodiments, decision block 215 of method 200 may be extended to evaluate one or more quality scores for each network connection to assign the network connection to the appropriate quality category. Method 200 may be extended with any number of steps similar to steps 220 and/or 225, each of which corresponding with a different quality category. Each of these additional steps may be tailored to perform one or more actions appropriate for the quality category. Although each quality category may have its own set of one or more actions, some or all of these actions may not be unique to the quality category. For example, different quality categories may have some actions in common.

For client network devices with either good or bad network connections, embodiments of the invention may choose to do nothing and ignore the problems of one or more bandwidth sentinel candidate network connections.

In an embodiment, if the wireless network connection of a bandwidth sentinel candidate network connection is congested at the start of the evaluation of the quality of its wireless network connection, but is uncongested by the time this evaluation has been completed, an embodiment of the bandwidth sentinel may choose to leave the wireless network connection of this bandwidth sentinel candidate network connection unchanged.

A further embodiment of the invention measures the effectiveness of the bandwidth sentinel using attributes such as client network device TX/RX bit rate usage; client network device TX/RX retries; client network device TX/RX airtime; queue depths; and client network device TX/RX bandwidth usage. An embodiment of the invention uses these attributes to establish measurements of client network device bandwidth and airtime allocations with or without bandwidth sentinel. Statistical measurements such as distributions and standard deviations may be used to compare the effectiveness of the bandwidth sentinel under a variety of operating conditions. The bandwidth sentinel feature may be activated or deactivated for some or all of the client network devices depending upon operating conditions and network administrator preferences.

As described above, an embodiment of a network device implements a bandwidth sentinel using both QoS and wireless network interface driver modules. Alternate embodiments of a network device may implement a bandwidth sentinel using one or more other types of modules.

In a further embodiment, the bandwidth sentinel may modify the allocation of bandwidth and/or airtime to one or more of the client network devices that are not receiving sufficient bandwidth. For example, the bandwidth sentinel may reduce the rate at which an enlarged token bucket used to increase bandwidth to a client network device is returned to its nominal size. In yet a further embodiment, the bandwidth sentinel may restore the token bucket size if the network connection congestion is relieved and the guaranteed minimum bandwidth for the network connection is met.

In an embodiment, the actions undertaken in step 220 in response to either improve wireless network connection performance for client network devices with good network connections or in step 225 to mitigate the impact of client network devices with bad network connections are different and may be selected based on the intended usage and environment of the network device, the types of client network devices, and/or the types of users of client network devices. The actions performed by the network device in either case may be configured or specified by network administrators or other users.

In an embodiment, a management module associated with one or more network devices including wireless network interfaces may be adapted to configure the bandwidth sentinel. Embodiments of the management module may configure bandwidth sentinels independently or collectively for multiple network devices. The configuration of each bandwidth sentinel may include enabling or disabling the bandwidth sentinel, minimum guaranteed bandwidth for one or more client network devices, congestion thresholds for identifying bandwidth sentinel candidate network connections, and benchmark quality scores for one or more types of wireless network interfaces. A further embodiment of the management module may configure any or all of these bandwidth sentinel attributes independently for different users or client network devices.

FIG. 3 illustrates a computer system suitable for implementing an embodiment of the invention. FIG. 3 is a block diagram of a computer system 2000, such as a personal computer or other digital device, suitable for practicing an embodiment of the invention. Embodiments of computer system 2000 include dedicated networking devices, such as wireless access points, network switches, hubs, routers, hardware firewalls, network traffic optimizers and accelerators, network attached storage devices, and combinations thereof.

Computer system 2000 includes a central processing unit (CPU) 2005 for running software applications and optionally an operating system. CPU 2005 may be comprised of one or more processing cores. Memory 2010 stores applications and data for use by the CPU 2005. Examples of memory 2010 include dynamic and static random access memory. Storage 2015 provides non-volatile storage for applications and data and may include fixed or removable hard disk drives, flash memory devices, ROM memory, and CD-ROM, DVD-ROM, Blu-ray, HD-DVD, or other magnetic, optical, or solid state storage devices. Memory 2010 may store a firmware image comprising applications and data adapted to be executed by computer system 2000.

Optional user input devices 2020 communicate user inputs from one or more users to the computer system 2000, examples of which may include keyboards, mice, joysticks, digitizer tablets, touch pads, touch screens, still or video cameras, and/or microphones. In an embodiment, user input devices may be omitted and computer system 2000 may present a user interface to a user over a network, for example using a web page or network management protocol and network management software applications.

Computer system 2000 includes one or more network interfaces 2025 that allow computer system 2000 to communicate with other computer systems via an electronic communications network, and may include wired or wireless communication over local area networks and wide area networks such as the Internet. Computer system 2000 may support a variety of networking protocols at one or more levels of abstraction. For example, computer system may support networking protocols at one or more layers of the seven layer OSI network model. An embodiment of network interface 2025 includes one or more wireless network interfaces adapted to communicate with wireless clients and with other wireless networking devices using radio waves, for example using the 802.11 family of protocols, such as 802.11a, 802.11b, 802.11g, and 802.11n.

An embodiment of the computer system 2000 may also include a wired networking interface, such as one or more Ethernet connections to communicate with other networking devices via local or wide-area networks. In a further embodiment, computer system 2000 may be capable of receiving some or all of its required electrical power via the network interface 2025, for example using a wired networking interface power over Ethernet system.

The components of computer system 2000, including CPU 2005, memory 2010, data storage 2015, user input devices 2020, and network interface 2025 are connected via one or more data buses 2060. Additionally, some or all of the components of computer system 2000, including CPU 2005, memory 2010, data storage 2015, user input devices 2020, and network interface 2025 may be integrated together into one or more integrated circuits or integrated circuit packages. Furthermore, some or all of the components of computer system 2000 may be implemented as application specific integrated circuits (ASICS) and/or programmable logic.

A power supply 2030 provides electrical power to the computer system 2000. Power supply 2030 may be adapted to draw electrical power from a connection with an electrical power distribution grid. In an embodiment, power supply 2030 is connected with network interface 2025 to draw electrical power for computer system 2000 from one or more wired network connections using a network power standard, such as IEEE 802.3af.

Although embodiments of the invention are discussed with reference to the IEEE 802.11 standard, embodiments of the invention are equally applicable to other standard and proprietary wireless network protocols. Additionally, embodiments of the invention are not limited to 802.11 wireless network connections and may be utilized for any type of communication network where a network connection between a client wireless network device and a wireless network device is required.

Further embodiments can be envisioned to one of ordinary skill in the art from the specification and figures. In other embodiments, combinations or sub-combinations of the above disclosed invention can be advantageously made. The block diagrams of the architecture and flow charts are grouped for ease of understanding. However it should be understood that combinations of blocks, additions of new blocks, re-arrangement of blocks, and the like are contemplated in alternative embodiments of the present invention. The specification and drawings are, accordingly, to be regarded in an illustrative rather than a restrictive sense. It will, however, be evident that various modifications and changes may be made thereunto without departing from the broader spirit and scope of the invention as set forth in the claims.

Claims

1. A method for configuring a network connection, the method comprising: identifying a wireless network connection of a network between a wireless network device and a client network device, the wireless network connection having network congestion;determining a quality score for the wireless network connection, the quality score based on at least two of receiving bit rate usage, transmission bit rate usage, transmission retries, receiving retries, received signal strength indication, and wireless network interface type of the wireless network connection;analyzing the wireless network connection, based on the quality score, to determine the wireless network connection is a source of the network congestion;determining another quality score for an additional wireless network connection between the wireless network device and another client network device based on at least two of receiving bit rate usage, transmission bit rate usage, transmission retries, receiving retries, received signal strength it and wireless network interface type of the additional wireless network connection;determining the additional wireless network connection is a high quality network connection based on the another quality score for the additional wireless network connection;allocating additional bandwidth and airtime to the additional wireless network connection based on the determination that the additional wireless network connection is the high quality network connection in order to mitigate impact of the network congestion at the wireless network connection on other network connections of the network;using cooperative load balancing to allow other network devices to provide the client network device wireless access to the network in order to mitigate impact of the network congestion at the wireless network connection on the client network device accessing the network.

2. The method of claim 1, further comprising: comparing the quality score for the wireless network connection with a benchmark quality score.

3. The method of claim 2, wherein the benchmark quality score is associated with a wireless network interface type.

4. The method of claim 2, wherein the benchmark quality score is associated with a wireless network user type.

5. The method of claim 2, wherein the benchmark quality score is associated with a wireless network client application type.

6. The method of claim 2, wherein the benchmark quality score is based on a quantile of a statistical distribution of previously determined quality scores.

7. The method of claim 1, further comprising: allocating additional wireless network interface bandwidth to the wireless network connection.

8. The method of claim 1, further comprising: allocating additional wireless network interface airtime to the wireless network connection.

9. The method of claim 1, further comprising: transferring the at least one additional wireless network connection to a second wireless network device.

10. The method of claim 1, further comprising: transferring the wireless network connection to a second wireless network device.

11. The method of claim 1, further comprising: transferring the at least one additional wireless network connection to a second wireless network device.

12. The method of claim 1, further comprising: transferring the wireless network connection to a second wireless network device.

13. The method of claim 1, further comprising: sending a notification identifying the wireless network connection and the quality score for the wireless network connection.

14. The method of claim 1, further comprising selecting the wireless network connection front a set of wireless network connections provided by the wireless network device based on a management configuration.

15. The method of claim 14, further comprising assigning each of the set of wireless network connections to a congestion threshold.

16. The method of claim 14, further comprising assigning each of the set of wireless network connections to a benchmark quality score.

17. The method of claim 14, further comprising assigning each of the set of wireless network connections to a minimum guaranteed bandwidth.

18. The method of claim 1, wherein the wireless network device includes a wireless access point.

19. The method of claim 1, wherein the wireless network connection enables communication between the wireless network device and the client network device.

20. The method of claim 1, further comprising selecting a first and second quality from a group comprising at least three qualities.

21. A system comprising: a means for identifying a wireless network connection of a network between a wireless network device and a client network device, the wireless network connection having network congestion;a means for determining a quality score for the wireless network connection, the quality score based on at least two of receiving bit rate usage, transmission bit rate usage, transmission retries, receiving retries, received signal strength indication, and wireless network interface type of the wireless network connection,a means for analyzing the wireless network connection, based on the quality score, to determine the wireless network connection is a source of the network congestion;a means for determining another quality score for an additional wireless network connection between the wireless network device and another client network device based on at least two of receiving bit rate usage, transmission hit rate usage, transmission retries, receiving retries, received signal strength indication, and wireless network interface type of the additional wireless network connection;a means for determining the additional wireless network connection is a high quality network connection based on the another quality score for the additional wireless network connection;a means for allocating additional bandwidth and airtime to the additional wireless network connection based on the determination that the additional wireless network connection is the high quality network connection in order to mitigate impact of the network congestion at the wireless network connection on other network connections of the network;a means for using cooperative load balancing to allow other network devices to provide the client network device wireless access to the network in order to mitigate impact of the network congestion at the wireless network connection on the client network device accessing the network.