aiqbench analysis
This research quantifies the communication overhead in federated learning over 802.11 networks by modeling frame-delivery ratios to estimate update admission probabilities without full simulation. The study reveals that while round counts remain stable under varying loads, total communication time scales significantly with client density, offering a practical proxy for optimizing wireless resource allocation in distributed training.
Hidden in Rounds: Predicting the Time Cost of 802.11 Contention in Federated Learning
arXiv:2609.12903v1 Announce Type: new Abstract: Federated learning over IEEE~802.11 shares the wireless channel among clients that send model updates. We use ns-3 to measure the frame-delivery ratio and saturation throughput for different client densities and offered loads. A separate FedAvg trainer uses the frame-delivery ratio as a first-order proxy for the update-admission probability and uses an equation to estimate communication time. The method does not simulate the delivery of a complete model update or measure end-to-end training time. Across 720 evaluated runs with two datasets, two data partitions, six client densities, six offered loads, and five seeds, all runs reached their predefined target accuracy within the round budget. Rounds-to-target changed little with offered load, while communication time-to-target increased by about two orders of magnitude across the client-density range. A Bianchi-anchored estimator produced a mean absolute percentage error from $2.3\%$ to $10.2\%$ on held-out configurations. This error is measured against communication time constructed from the same round-duration equation, not against independently measured completion time. We also compare uniform participation with persistent heterogeneous participation. The study does not detect a statistically distinguishable excluded-class accuracy gap over five seeds, but the confidence intervals are wide. The results apply only to the evaluated configurations and do not provide a general convergence or fairness guarantee.
Title:Hidden in Rounds: Predicting the Time Cost of 802.11 Contention in Federated Learning
Abstract:Federated learning over IEEE~802.11 shares the wireless channel among clients that send model updates. We use ns-3 to measure the frame-delivery ratio and saturation throughput for different client densities and offered loads. A separate FedAvg trainer uses the frame-delivery ratio as a first-order proxy for the update-admission probability and uses an equation to estimate communication time. The method does not simulate the delivery of a complete model update or measure end-to-end training time. Across 720 evaluated runs with two datasets, two data partitions, six client densities, six offered loads, and five seeds, all runs reached their predefined target accuracy within the round budget. Rounds-to-target changed little with offered load, while communication time-to-target increased by about two orders of magnitude across the client-density range. A Bianchi-anchored estimator produced a mean absolute percentage error from $2.3\%$ to $10.2\%$ on held-out configurations. This error is measured against communication time constructed from the same round-duration equation, not against independently measured completion time. We also compare uniform participation with persistent heterogeneous participation. The study does not detect a statistically distinguishable excluded-class accuracy gap over five seeds, but the confidence intervals are wide. The results apply only to the evaluated configurations and do not provide a general convergence or fairness guarantee.
Machine Learning (cs.LG); Distributed, Parallel, and Cluster Computing (cs.DC)
arXiv:2609.12903 [cs.LG]
(or arXiv:2609.12903v1 [cs.LG] for this version)
https://doi.org/10.48550/arXiv.2609.12903 Focus to learn more arXiv-issued DOI via DataCite (pending registration)
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