QoS and airtime
These clauses separate control traffic from bulk traffic first, then require marking that survives every hop and is proven by capture, because prioritization improves the odds and reserves nothing.
Prioritization raises the odds that a control frame wins the channel. It does not reserve the channel. These clauses put separation first, keep bulk transfers out of production time, require marking that holds end to end in both directions, and cap the SSIDs and utilization on every channel that carries control traffic.
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5.1 Separate control from bulk traffic shall
Control traffic for [Vehicle or machine] shall ride a channel, band, or radio that carries no video, map downloads, firmware updates, or log uploads during production. Where a vehicle carries two radios, one shall carry control traffic and nothing else.
5.2 Bulk transfers in scheduled windows shall
Firmware downloads, map pushes, and log uploads to vehicles shall run in scheduled windows outside production, or shall be rate-limited and staged so that no more than [Share of the fleet transferring at once] percent of the fleet transfers at once.
5.3 Marking preserved end to end shall
Control traffic shall carry DSCP marking from the end device. The access point shall map DSCP to WMM user priority by an explicit table rather than the default three-bit copy, the marking shall survive every switch, tunnel, and controller on the path in both directions, and bulk traffic shall be marked below control traffic.
5.4 Uplink marking on the vehicle shall
The maker of [Vehicle or machine] shall document the DSCP and WMM marking its radio applies to each uplink traffic class, and control traffic sent by the vehicle shall leave it marked above best effort.
5.5 Few SSIDs and no low basic rates shall
Radios that carry control traffic shall advertise no more than [Maximum SSIDs per control radio] SSIDs, and their lowest basic rate shall be [Lowest basic rate] Mbps or higher once every device on the SSID is confirmed to join at that rate.1
5.6 An airtime budget per channel shall
Channel utilization on every channel that carries control traffic shall stay below [Channel utilization ceiling] percent at peak with the full fleet running, and the design shall be sized for the fleet the owner plans to run, [Planned fleet size] vehicles, not the fleet on survey day.2
About this page
Built from 9 sources: 2 standards bodies and labs, 1 protocol owner or alliance and 6 vendor documents. Researched and drafted with AI assistance, then reviewed and approved by Ben Rutter on . How pages are made
- First published
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Change history (1)
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Cite this page
Plain
Ben Rutter. "QoS and airtime." OT Wireless, published October 6, 2026, updated October 5, 2026. https://otwireless.com/clauses/qos-and-airtime/
APA 7
Rutter, B. (2026, October 6). QoS and airtime. OT Wireless. https://otwireless.com/clauses/qos-and-airtime/
BibTeX
@misc{rutter2026qosandairtime,
author = {Rutter, Ben},
title = {{QoS and airtime}},
year = {2026},
howpublished = {\url{https://otwireless.com/clauses/qos-and-airtime/}},
organization = {OT Wireless},
}