Stefan Alfredsson

Impact of TCP congestion control on bufferbloat in cellular networks

The existence of excessively large and too filled network buffers, known as bufferbloat, has recently gained attention as a major performance problem for delay-sensitive applications. One important network scenario where bufferbloat may occur is cellular networks. This paper investigates the interaction between TCP congestion control and buffering in cellular networks. Extensive measurements have been performed in commercial 3G, 3.5G and 4G cellular networks, with a mix of long and short TCP flows using the CUBIC, NewReno and Westwood+ congestion control algorithms. The results show that the completion times of short flows increase significantly when concurrent long flow traffic is introduced. This is caused by increased buffer occupancy from the long flows. In addition, for 3G and 3.5G the completion times are shown to depend significantly on the congestion control algorithms used for the background flows, with CUBIC leading to significantly larger completion times.

Measuring and assessing mobile broadband networks with MONROE

Mobile broadband (MBB) networks underpin numerous vital operations of the society and are arguably becoming the most important piece of the communications infrastructure. In this demo paper, our goal is to showcase the potential of a novel multi-homed MBB platform for measuring, monitoring and assessing the performance of MBB services in an objective manner. Our platform, MONROE, is composed of hundreds of nodes scattered over four European countries and a backend system that collects the measurement results. Through a user-friendly web client, the experimenters can schedule and deploy their experiments. The platform further embeds traffic analysis tools for real-time traffic flow analysis and a powerful visualization tool.

A measurement based study of TCP protocol efficiency in cellular networks

This paper examines the efficiency of resource utilization with respect to short-lived TCP flows in various cellular networks. The examination is done from the vantage point of an end-user who would like to use as much as possible of the cellular transmission resources that are available at any given time, thus minimizing the delays associated with communication. Based on a comprehensive measurement campaign we first derive network characteristics with regards to base RTT, RTT under load, and average throughput. A protocol efficiency metric is introduced to capture how efficiently short TCP flows are in fact able to use the instantaneously available transmission resources in a cellular network. The measurements show that short TCP connections have low efficiency in 3.5G (HSPA+) and 4G (LTE) mobile broadband networks, and that the improved latency and throughput characteristics of 4G in relation to 3.5G nevertheless results in lower short-flow efficiency for 4G.

Experience: An Open Platform for Experimentation with Commercial Mobile Broadband Networks

Open experimentation with operational Mobile Broadband (MBB) networks in the wild is currently a fundamental requirement of the research community in its endeavor to address the need of innovative solutions for mobile communications. Even more, there is a strong need for objective data about stability and performance of MBB (e.g., 3G/4G) networks, and for tools that rigorously and scientifically assess their status. In this paper, we introduce the MONROE measurement platform: an open access and flexible hardware-based platform for measurements and custom experimentation on operational MBB networks. The MONROE platform enables accurate, realistic and meaningful assessment of the performance and reliability of 11 MBB networks in Europe. We report on our experience designing, implementing and testing the solution we propose for the platform. We detail the challenges we overcame while building and testing the MONROE testbed and argue our design and implementation choices accordingly. We describe and exemplify the capabilities of the platform and the wide variety of experiments that external users already perform using the system.

Cross-layer analysis of TCP performance in a 4G system

This paper presents results from an experimental study of TCP in a wireless 4G evaluation system. Test-bed results on transport layer performance are presented and analyzed in relation to several link layer aspects. The aspects investigated are the impact of channel prediction errors, channel scheduling, delay, and adaptive modulation switch level, on TCP performance. The paper contributes a cross-layer analysis of the interaction between symbol modulation levels, different scheduling strategies, channel prediction errors and the resulting frame retransmissions effect on TCP. The paper also shows that highly persistent ARQ with fast link retransmissions do not interact negatively with the TCP retransmission timer even for short round trip delays.

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

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.

Delay metrics and delay characteristics: A study of four Swedish HSDPA+ and LTE networks

Network delays and user perceived latencies are of major importance in many applications in cellular networks. Delays can be measured with multiple approaches and at different protocol layers. This work involves a detailed examination of several delay metrics from a network, transport, and application perspective. The study explores base delay as well as latency under load, capturing also the effect of buffering. The examination is based on a comprehensive active measurement campaign performed in the networks of four Swedish operators. The results show that the delay captured by different metrics can vary significantly, with delay captured from the TCP three-way-handshake and adaptive ping measurements giving the most consistent results for base network delay in our measurements. As expected, when background traffic is introduced measured delay increases by an order of magnitude due to buffering in the network, highlighting the importance of also capturing latency under load when describing network performance. Finally, using an analytic model of flow completion time, we show that well-selected network measurements can provide a good prediction of higher layer delay performance.

Impact of 4G wireless link configurations on VoIP network performance

The performance of applications in wireless networks is partly dependent upon the link configuration. Link characteristics varies with frame retransmission persistency, link frame retransmission delay, adaptive modulation strategies, coding, and more. The link configuration and channel conditions can lead to packet loss, delay and delay variations, which impact different applications in different ways. A bulk transfer application may tolerate delays to a large extent, while packet loss is undesirable. On the other hand, real-time interactive applications are sensitive to delay and delay variations, but may tolerate packet loss to a certain extent. This paper contributes a study of the effect of link frame retransmission persistency and delay on packet loss and latency for real-time interactive applications. The results indicate that a reliable retransmission mechanism with fast link retransmissions in the range of 2-8 ms is sufficient to provide an upper delay bound of 50 ms over the wireless link, which is well within the delay budget of voice over IP applications.

A NEAT Approach to Mobile Communication

The demands for mobile communication is ever increasing. Mobile applications are increasing both in numbers and in heterogeneity of their requirements, and an increasingly diverse set of mobile technologies are employed. This creates an urgent need for optimizing end-to-end services based on application requirements, conditions in the network and available transport solutions; something which is very hard to achieve with todays internet architecture. In this paper, we introduce the NEAT transport architecture as a solution to this problem. NEAT is designed to offer a flexible and evolvable transport system, where applications communicate their transport-service requirements to the NEAT system in a generic, transport-protocol independent way. The best transport option is then configured at run-time based on application requirements, network conditions, and available transport options. Through a set of real life mobile use case experiments, we demonstrate how applications with different properties and requirements could employ the NEAT system in multi-access environments, showing significant performance benefits as a result.

MONROE, a distributed platform to measure and assess mobile broadband networks: demo

This demo presents the MONROE distributed platform and how it can be used to implement measurement and assessment experiments with operational mobile broadband networks (MBBs). MONROE provides registered experimenters with open access to hundreds of nodes, distributed over several European countries and equipped with multiple MBB connections, and a backend system that collects the measurement results. Experiments are scheduled through a user-friendly web client, with no need to directly access the nodes. The platform further embeds tools for real-time traffic flow analysis and a powerful visualization tool.