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{binh,arijit,kasera,kobus}@cs.utah.edu
{gvijay,slee,ashaikh}@research.att.com
Abstract - The popularity of smartphones and smartphone applications means that data is the dominant traffic type in current
mobile networks. In this paper we present our work on a systematic
investigation into facets of the LTE/EPC architecture that impact
the performance of TCP as the predominant transport layer protocol used by applications on mobile networks. We found that (1)
load increase in a cell causes dramatic bandwidth reduction on UEs
and significantly degrades TCP performance, (2) seamless handover
causes significant TCP losses while lossless handover increases TCP
segments delay.
Keywords
TCP performance; mobile networking; LTE/EPC networks
1.
INTRODUCTION
The emergence of smartphones and smartphone app markets resulted in data overtaking voice as the predominant traffic type on
mobile networks [16]. The growth and importance of data traffic
is expected to continue as packet-based mobile network architectures, specifically networks based on long term evolution (LTE) and
evolved packet core (EPC) technologies, offer substantially higher
user throughput and lower delay compared to previous technologies.
For example, the Cisco mobile data traffic forecast white paper [13]
reported that in 2013 the average mobile downstream speed was
1,387 Kbps (doubled from 2012) and 4G connections account for
30 percent of all mobile data traffic even though they represent only
2.9 percent of mobile connections.
The growing importance of data in mobile networks suggests the
need to understand the impact of mobility protocols and the mobile
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AllThingsCellular14, August 22 2014, Chicago, IL, USA
Copyright 2014 ACM 978-1-4503-2990-3/14/08 ...$15.00.
http://dx.doi.org/10.1145/2627585.2627594.
eNB
UE
3ms
1Gbps, 14ms
S/PGW
1Gbps, 18ms
Server
2.
METHODOLOGY
Value
50 (one UE), 100 (multiple UEs)
proportional fair
512KB
RLC AM (default)
Enabled
46 dBm
5 dB
23 dBm
9 dB
3.
EXPERIMENTS
3.1
While sudden load increase can happen with any network, sudden
load increases are potentially more frequent and severe in mobile
networks for two reasons. First, UEs can be within range of multiple
900
30
35
800
10
500
400
Delay (ms)
15
600
load increase
20
300
200
100
700
600
500
400
300
200
0
15
13
11
15
13
Time(s)
800
100
0
11
0
40
10
35
15
30
20
25
25
0
20
900
30
700
25
1000
TCP goodput
End-to-end delay
35
cwnd
segment delay
estimated RTO
1200
500
400
800
300
600
200
400
100
200
0
22
delay (ms)
1000
cwnd (segments)
0
24
26
28
30
32
34
Time (s)
3.2
1400
100
50
800
handover
Cwnd (segment)
1000
150
CWnd
segment delay
600
400
delay (ms)
1200
200
200
0
20
25
30
35
40
35
40
25
30
Time (s)
1.03e+07
1.02e+07
Bytes
20
handover
UEs (i.e, MAC scheduler). The MAC layer also performs HARQ
(Hybrid Automatic Repeat reQuest) function that retransmits lost
frames.
During an impending handover event, the source eNodeB decides
to handover a UE to a neighboring target eNodeB based on the
signal strength measurement reported from the UE or the current
eNodeB load. During a handover, if the UE is receiving data, the
source eNodeB can have some data in the queue for the UE. The
PDCP queuing is depicted in Figure 4. Depending on how to handle
this data, there are two types of handover in LTE.
TCP throughput
handover
Throughput (kbps)
Time (s)
4500
4000
3500
3000
2500
2000
1500
1000
500
0
1.01e+07
1e+07
9.9e+06
9.8e+06
30
30.5
31
31.5
32
32.5
33
33.5
34
Time (s)
1600
1400
50
600
100
800
delay (ms)
1000
400
cwnd
segment delay
200
0
25
30
35
2
1.5
1
0.5
0
20
Lossless handover
Seamless handover
2.5
1200
150
handover
Cwnd (segment)
200
40
96
48
24
2K
Throughput (kbps)
40
20
10
51
6K
8K
handover
4500
4000
3500
3000
2500
2000
1500
1000
500
0
25
12
64
Time (s)
TCP throughput
20
25
30
35
40
Time (s)
100
10
6K
9
40
8K
4
20
4K
2
10
2
51
6
25
8
12
K
64
1000
4.
RELATED WORK
Erman et al. [8] have shown that the lack of harmony between the
TCP layer and the underlying cellular network operation (specifically the different state machines) negatively impacts application
performance. Winstein et al. [24] showed how TCP-like reactive
congestion control leads to additional delay due to built-in reliability
mechanisms in the cellular medium access control layers. Huang
et al. [12] did a large scale study on a commercial LTE network
and they found various inefficiencies in TCP over LTE such as undesired slow start. Other research works analyzed the impact of
radio link control protocols and parameters on the performance of
UMTS systems [22, 25]. Researchers have also identified that large
delays associated with handovers in cellular environment lead to
TCP performance degradation and proposed some optimizations to
reduce handover-related delay [18, 5].
However, the majority of existing studies either were based on
measurements of higher level application behavior, or looked at
different protocol layers in isolation. In this paper, we delved into
the intricate details of cross layer interactions between TCP and
lower layer protocols in LTE. Specifically, we investigated specific
scenarios encountered in a cellular environment such as sudden
load increase in a cell and handovers and shown through detailed
simulations how the operation of the LTE radio access protocols in
these scenarios impact TCP performance.
5.
CONCLUSION
6.
REFERENCES