User's Guide

16 Traffic Classes 42
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7signal Sapphire Carat Carat User Guide Release 3.0
16 TRAFFIC CLASSES
The IEEE 802.11e standard defines eight traffic classes. Most mission-critical access points
support this standard. Traffic classes are becoming more and more important, especially on
account of wireless VoIP.
7signal Sapphire Enterprise supports the 802.11e standard. Active tests can be configured to
have a traffic class. All Sapphire versions support assignment of traffic classes, but if the
Sapphire license does not include traffic classes, Sapphire will treat the traffic as ordinary
traffic (Non-QoS, best-effort). Traffic classes are taken into account in only those networks
whose access points support this feature. A request for a traffic class does not guarantee that
it is granted. When viewing measurement reports, you might see that several traffic classes
have been used. The class granted will never exceed that requested.
The following table describes the traffic classes for the parameters of active tests:
The standard defines eight traffic classes, which are grouped into four named classes
(background, best-effort, video, and voice). In practice, most telecommunications devices
support four named classes. This is seen in Sapphire as well, where Eye supports four classes,
and the user interface shows eight. Only supported classes are selectable in the user interface.
Note: The ping test is an active test, but, on account of its nature, assigning a
traffic class to it is not sensible.
Note: Best-effort (0) refers to unclassified traffic that does not conform to the
IEEE 802.11e standard.