Evaluation of TCP Performance in 3G Mobile Networks

Abstract: With the increase in mobile broadband services the operators are gaining profits by providing high speed Internet access over the mobile network. On the other side they are also facing challenges to give QoS guarantee to the customers. In this thesis we investigate the impact of data rate and payload size on One Way Delay (OWD) and packet loss over TCP performance in 3G networks. Our goal is to evaluate the OWD and packet loss characteristics with respect to payload size and data rate from the collected network level traces. To collect these traces an experimental testbed is setup with Endace Data Acquisition and Generation (DAG) cards, for accurate measurements Endace DAG cards together with Global Positioning System (GPS) synchronization is implemented. The experiments are conducted for three different Swedish mobile operator networks and further the statistics of OWD measurements and packet loss for different data rates and payload sizes are evaluated. Our results indicate that the minimal OWD occurred at higher data rates and also shows a high delay variability. The packet loss has much impact on higher data rates and larger payload sizes, as the packet loss increases with the increase in data rate and payload size.