Performance Analysis of Peer-to-Peer Communication on 3G Cellular Networks

Abstract: Many technologies are emerging in the field of telecommunications enabling higher data rate services through mobile and portable modems on 3G networks. To support rich data services, operators are looking beyond their 2G/2.5G networks for long-term and cost-effective proven solutions. Peer-to-Peer (P2P) communication services play major role in third and upcoming generations of cellular systems. P2P is gaining significance because of growing popularity of mobile web environment. In this thesis, the authors investigate the performance of Transmission Control Protocol (TCP) and User Datagram Protocol (UDP) for P2P communication services on 3G UMTS network. This thesis examines how different parameters such as network load, chunk size, data size, and signal strength influence performance metrics on a real time network. The performance metrics chosen for this purpose are Normalized Average Delay (NAD), throughput and data loss. From the experimental results, it was observed that as chunk size increases throughput increases and NAD decreases. It was also noticed that better results for non-peak hours and strong signal strengths when compared to peak hours and weak signal strengths. Finally, data loss was observed only for UDP.