The role of regulation in preventing Wi-Fi over-congestion in densely populated areas

Given the ever increasing number of Wi-Fi devices in use by the public, the progressing urbanisation, and the current attempts by the industry to improve Wi-Fi system performance, we here analyse the case of apartment blocks with residents increasingly suffering from Wi-Fi over-congestion. Here, individuals use private Wi-Fi networks in an "in house" environment to achieve cordless connectivity to the Internet. We show that Wi-Fi in apartment blocks is a true commons and, therefore, over-congestion can only be avoided by having the individual access point (AP) operators collaborating with each other. We found that such collaboration is not inhibited by current regulation, but neither can it be enforced. However, as AP operators will most likely enter collaboration voluntarily, further regulation is not deemed necessary.