In the rapid development of IIoT, wireless communication technology plays a crucial role. Especially in industrial environments that require flexible deployment and rapid response, WiFi technology is favored for its convenience and high bandwidth characteristics. 

However, in a complex industrial network environment, how to ensure the smooth transmission of multimedia data such as video and audio, while ensuring the real-time and reliability of other critical data, has become an urgent problem to be solved. At this time, the WMM Wireless Multimedia Extensions mode in 4G LTE router WiFi is particularly important. This article will delve into the WMM mode in 4G LTE router WiFi and its important role in industrial networking applications.

1. What is WMM mode

WMMWireless Multimedia Extensions, also known as wireless multimedia extensions, is a wireless network technology primarily used to optimize multimedia data transmission, provide priority access to streaming media, audio, and video data, and better support for QoS quality of service. In 4G LTE router WiFi, the WMM mode ensures high transmission quality of multimedia data during network congestion by setting different priority levels and bandwidth management policies, thereby meeting the high requirements of real-time and reliability in industrial IoT.

2. Operating principle of WMM mode

2.1 Priority division

The WMM mode distinguishes different data transmission types by defining four access categories AC, and assigns different priorities to each access category. The four access categories are:

• Voice: The highest priority, used for real-time voice transmission to ensure the continuity and clarity of the call.
• Video: The second highest priority, used for real-time video transmission to ensure smooth video streaming and low latency.
• Best Effort: Default priority, used for ordinary data transmission, such as file transfer, web browsing, etc.
• Background: The lowest priority, used for non-real-time, non-critical data transmission, such as system updates, background tasks, etc.

When the 4G LTE router receives data, it will assign a corresponding priority to it based on the access category of the data. When the network is congested, high-priority data will be transmitted first, ensuring the smoothness and real-time performance of multimedia data.

2.2 Bandwidth management

In addition to prioritization, the WMM mode also limits the bandwidth usage of different types of data through bandwidth management. Network administrators can set bandwidth limits for different access categories based on actual needs to avoid excessive bandwidth consumption by certain types of data that affect the transmission of other important data. This flexible bandwidth management strategy helps optimize the allocation of network resources and improve the overall network performance and reliability.

2.3 Fault Tolerance and Channel Slot Utilization

WMM mode also has better fault tolerance, which can detect and correct error packets during transmission to ensure the quality of data transmission. At the same time, it can also optimize the transmission rate based on the utilization rate of channel time slots, adaptively adjust the transmission rate and QoS level, and better cope with network congestion and changes.

3. Application of WMM mode in industrial IoT

In the industrial IoT environment, the application of the WMM model is of great significance. Firstly, it can meet the high requirements for multimedia data transmission in industrial environments, such as video surveillance, remote meetings, and other application scenarios. By providing priority access and better QoS support, WMM mode can ensure the smoothness and real-time performance of these critical applications.
Secondly, the WMM mode also helps improve the overall performance and reliability of industrial networks. Through prioritization and bandwidth management strategies, it can optimize the allocation of network resources, reduce network congestion and latency, and improve the efficiency and stability of data transmission. This is crucial for industrial applications that require high reliability and real-time performance.
Finally, the WMM mode also has certain security guarantees. It supports various encryption and authentication technologies, such as WPAWi-Fi Protected Access and WPA2Wi-Fi Protected Access II, to protect the network from unauthorized access and attacks. This is of great significance for protecting sensitive data and critical equipment in industrial networks.

The WMM mode in 4G LTE router WiFi is an important wireless network technology that provides strong support for multimedia data transmission in industrial IoT through prioritization, bandwidth management, fault tolerance, and channel slot utilization optimization. In industrial networking applications, enabling WMM mode can significantly improve network performance and reliability, meeting the high requirements for real-time and reliability in industrial environments. Therefore, for industrial IoT users who need to use networking applications, it is crucial to understand and master the working principle and application method of WMM mode.