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Examining TCP Short Flow Performance in Cellular Networks Through Active and Passive Measurements

Published: 17 August 2015 Publication History
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  • Abstract

    In this study we examine the conditions in a current cellular network by examining data passively collected in the core of a cellular operator during a 24-hour period. More than 2 billion traffic measurement data points from over 500,000 cellular users are analyzed. The analysis characterizes the Time-of-Day (ToD) variations for traffic intensity and session length and serves as a complement to the active measurements also performed. A comprehensive active measurement campaign was completed in the HSDPA+ and LTE networks of the four major Swedish operators. We collect around 50,000 data points from stationary cellular modems and analyze the ToD variation pattern for underlying network layer metrics such as delay and throughput. In conjunction with the time-varying session size distribution obtained from the passive measurements, we then analyze the ToD impact on TCP flows of varying sizes. The ToD effects are examined using time series analysis with Lomb-Scargle periodograms and differential Bayesian Information Criterion to allow comparison of the relative impact of the network ToD effects. The results show that ToD effects are predominantly impacting longer-running flows, and although short flows are also impacted they are mostly constrained by other issues such as protocol efficiency.

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    Cited By

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    • (2024)Network State Estimation by Spectral Analysis of Passively Measured TCP Flows2024 International Conference on Information Networking (ICOIN)10.1109/ICOIN59985.2024.10572071(373-378)Online publication date: 17-Jan-2024
    • (2024)Statistical analysis and characterization of signaling and user traffic of a commercial multi-band LTE systemTelecommunication Systems10.1007/s11235-024-01196-5Online publication date: 5-Jul-2024
    • (2018)Transport Protocol Performance and Impact on QoS while on the Move in Current and Future Low Latency DeploymentsBroadband Communications Networks - Recent Advances and Lessons from Practice10.5772/intechopen.71779Online publication date: 19-Sep-2018
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    1. Examining TCP Short Flow Performance in Cellular Networks Through Active and Passive Measurements

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          cover image ACM Conferences
          AllThingsCellular '15: Proceedings of the 5th Workshop on All Things Cellular: Operations, Applications and Challenges
          August 2015
          70 pages
          ISBN:9781450335386
          DOI:10.1145/2785971
          Permission to make digital or hard copies of all or part of this work for personal or classroom use is granted without fee provided that copies are not made or distributed for profit or commercial advantage and that copies bear this notice and the full citation on the first page. Copyrights for components of this work owned by others than ACM must be honored. Abstracting with credit is permitted. To copy otherwise, or republish, to post on servers or to redistribute to lists, requires prior specific permission and/or a fee. Request permissions from [email protected]

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          Publication History

          Published: 17 August 2015

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          Author Tags

          1. TCP
          2. mobile networks
          3. periodogram
          4. time of day

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          • Research-article

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          SIGCOMM '15
          Sponsor:
          SIGCOMM '15: ACM SIGCOMM 2015 Conference
          August 17, 2015
          London, United Kingdom

          Acceptance Rates

          AllThingsCellular '15 Paper Acceptance Rate 8 of 16 submissions, 50%;
          Overall Acceptance Rate 24 of 51 submissions, 47%

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          View all
          • (2024)Network State Estimation by Spectral Analysis of Passively Measured TCP Flows2024 International Conference on Information Networking (ICOIN)10.1109/ICOIN59985.2024.10572071(373-378)Online publication date: 17-Jan-2024
          • (2024)Statistical analysis and characterization of signaling and user traffic of a commercial multi-band LTE systemTelecommunication Systems10.1007/s11235-024-01196-5Online publication date: 5-Jul-2024
          • (2018)Transport Protocol Performance and Impact on QoS while on the Move in Current and Future Low Latency DeploymentsBroadband Communications Networks - Recent Advances and Lessons from Practice10.5772/intechopen.71779Online publication date: 19-Sep-2018
          • (2018)TCP Performance over Current Cellular Access: A Comprehensive AnalysisAutonomous Control for a Reliable Internet of Services10.1007/978-3-319-90415-3_14(371-400)Online publication date: 25-May-2018
          • (2017)The impact of duration and settings of TCP measurements on available bandwidth estimation in mobile networks2017 IEEE 28th Annual International Symposium on Personal, Indoor, and Mobile Radio Communications (PIMRC)10.1109/PIMRC.2017.8292522(1-6)Online publication date: Oct-2017
          • (2016)TCP behaviour in LTE: Impact of flow start-up and mobility2016 9th IFIP Wireless and Mobile Networking Conference (WMNC)10.1109/WMNC.2016.7543932(73-80)Online publication date: Jul-2016
          • (2016)Minimum complexity APP prioritization by bandwidth apportioning in smart phones2016 IEEE Wireless Communications and Networking Conference10.1109/WCNC.2016.7564972(1-6)Online publication date: Apr-2016
          • (2016)Estimating data transfer capacity for intermittent connectivity: A transport aware model2016 IEEE 27th Annual International Symposium on Personal, Indoor, and Mobile Radio Communications (PIMRC)10.1109/PIMRC.2016.7794853(1-6)Online publication date: Sep-2016

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