What’s New for QoS in IEEE 802.11?

Two amendments to IEEE 802.11 have recently been published: 802.11aa and 802.11ae. Both enhance Quality of Service (QoS) provisioning in Wi-Fi networks by providing support for multicast transmission, enhanced audio video streaming, coping with inter-network interference, and improved prioritization of management frames. The proposed solutions either extend mechanisms already existing in the standard or introduce new ones. Therefore, it is important for researchers to understand the new functionalities. To this end we provide the first description of these latest mechanisms: we present the motivation behind them, explain their design principles, provide examples of usage, and comment on compatibility issues. Finally, we identify new research challenges related to the two new amendments.