By Albert Garcia, Comcast
The proliferation of MSO-managed Wi-Fi devices has created a new set of challenges to define best install practices, capacity and troubleshooting. Modeling and characterizing capacity, as it pertains to multiple devices creating diverse traffic models, is challenging and evolving. Overcoming difficulty in the translation of a repeatable test lab environment, as a baseline to real world customer experience, will be discussed. This paper will focus on approaches to provide recommended device installation guidelines through a four-prong approach of prototyping, characterizing, baselining and real world testing.
This paper loosely follows the steps that Comcast took prior to the launch of the first wireless video set top. While Wi-Fi was not new, its application to a managed device was novel to the organization.
Installation guidelines, much like those that existed for coaxial-connected devices, had to be developed based on new metrics which needed to be standardized across the various device combinations.
Similarly, device settings needed to be adapted for this new medium through a cycle of prototyping and testing. Lastly, a new approach to whole home testing had to be taken to account for these new devices in the ecosystem.