End-to-end measurements over GPRS-EDGE networks

Abstract

In the last years, QoS (Quality of Service) parameter estimation has become a main research area in networking due to a continuous growth of the Internet. End-to-end active measurement is one of the topics that focuses on this research area. However, these measurement methodologies have focused on end-to-end measurements over the wired Internet. The development of cellular data services is shifting the resarch focus on QoS from wired to wireless networks. End-to-end measurement methodologies of cellular networks have some issues that are not considered by traditional measurement techniques. This paper analyzes these issues and suggests an end-to-end active measurement methodology that deals with these particular problems. The proposed research and measurement methodology is based on a GSM (Global System for Mobile Communications) network, particularly on data services on a GPRS-EDGE (General Packet Radio Service/Enhanced Data Rates for GSM Evolution) network. Several experiments in different situations have been done in a real cellular network. These experiments have tested the performance of the methodology in different data access conditions. Categories and Subject Descriptors C.4 [Performance of Systems]: Measurement techniques, Performance attributes. General Terms Network performance, Algorithms. Keywords Performance, QoS, GSM, GPRS-EDGE.