Comparison of User Traffic Characteristics on Mobile-Access versus Fixed-Access Networks
We compare Web traffic characteristics of mobile- versus fixed-access end-hosts, where herein the term "mobile" refers to access via cell towers, using for example the 3G/UMTS standard, and the term "fixed" includes Wi-Fi access. It is well-known that connection speeds are in gen...
| Main Authors: | , |
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| Other Authors: | |
| Language: | en-US |
| Published: |
2011
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| Online Access: | http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/62579 |
| _version_ | 1811096901785747456 |
|---|---|
| author | Heikkinen, Mikko V. J. Berger, Arthur W. |
| author2 | David Clark |
| author_facet | David Clark Heikkinen, Mikko V. J. Berger, Arthur W. |
| author_sort | Heikkinen, Mikko V. J. |
| collection | MIT |
| description | We compare Web traffic characteristics of mobile- versus fixed-access end-hosts, where herein the term "mobile" refers to access via cell towers, using for example the 3G/UMTS standard, and the term "fixed" includes Wi-Fi access. It is well-known that connection speeds are in general slower over mobile-access networks, and also that often there is higher packet loss. We were curious whether this leads mobile-access users to have smaller connections. We examined the distribution of the number of bytes-per-connection, and packet loss from a sampling of logs from servers of Akamai Technologies. We obtained 149 million connections, across 57 countries. The mean bytes-per-connection was typically larger for fixed-access: for two-thirds of the countries, it was at least one-third larger. Regarding distributions, we found that the difference between the bytes-per-connection for mobile- versus fixed-access, as well as the packet loss, was statistically significant for each of the countries; however the visual difference in plots is typically small. For some countries, mobile-access had the larger connections. As expected, mobile-access often had higher loss than fixed-access, but the reverse pertained for some countries. Typically packet loss increased during the busy period of the day, when mobile-access had a larger increase. Comparing our results from 2010 to those from 2009 of the same time period, we found that connections have become a bit smaller. |
| first_indexed | 2024-09-23T16:51:11Z |
| id | mit-1721.1/62579 |
| institution | Massachusetts Institute of Technology |
| language | en-US |
| last_indexed | 2024-09-23T16:51:11Z |
| publishDate | 2011 |
| record_format | dspace |
| spelling | mit-1721.1/625792019-04-10T12:52:10Z Comparison of User Traffic Characteristics on Mobile-Access versus Fixed-Access Networks Heikkinen, Mikko V. J. Berger, Arthur W. David Clark Advanced Network Architecture We compare Web traffic characteristics of mobile- versus fixed-access end-hosts, where herein the term "mobile" refers to access via cell towers, using for example the 3G/UMTS standard, and the term "fixed" includes Wi-Fi access. It is well-known that connection speeds are in general slower over mobile-access networks, and also that often there is higher packet loss. We were curious whether this leads mobile-access users to have smaller connections. We examined the distribution of the number of bytes-per-connection, and packet loss from a sampling of logs from servers of Akamai Technologies. We obtained 149 million connections, across 57 countries. The mean bytes-per-connection was typically larger for fixed-access: for two-thirds of the countries, it was at least one-third larger. Regarding distributions, we found that the difference between the bytes-per-connection for mobile- versus fixed-access, as well as the packet loss, was statistically significant for each of the countries; however the visual difference in plots is typically small. For some countries, mobile-access had the larger connections. As expected, mobile-access often had higher loss than fixed-access, but the reverse pertained for some countries. Typically packet loss increased during the busy period of the day, when mobile-access had a larger increase. Comparing our results from 2010 to those from 2009 of the same time period, we found that connections have become a bit smaller. 2011-05-03T21:15:05Z 2011-05-03T21:15:05Z 2011-05-03 http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/62579 en-US MIT-CSAIL-TR-2011-028 Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/ 20 p. application/pdf |
| spellingShingle | Heikkinen, Mikko V. J. Berger, Arthur W. Comparison of User Traffic Characteristics on Mobile-Access versus Fixed-Access Networks |
| title | Comparison of User Traffic Characteristics on Mobile-Access versus Fixed-Access Networks |
| title_full | Comparison of User Traffic Characteristics on Mobile-Access versus Fixed-Access Networks |
| title_fullStr | Comparison of User Traffic Characteristics on Mobile-Access versus Fixed-Access Networks |
| title_full_unstemmed | Comparison of User Traffic Characteristics on Mobile-Access versus Fixed-Access Networks |
| title_short | Comparison of User Traffic Characteristics on Mobile-Access versus Fixed-Access Networks |
| title_sort | comparison of user traffic characteristics on mobile access versus fixed access networks |
| url | http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/62579 |
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