Project WISQY: a measurement-based end-to-end application-level performance comparison of 2.5G and 3G networks

The imminent transition from 2.5G to 3G networks is generally considered to be a keystone for the future economic success of mobile telecommunications. This paper presents a practical comparison of GRPS and UMTS network performance, based on measurements in the live network of Mobilkom Austria and comparing the results to dedicated lab trials. Starting from raw TCP/IP download and upload transfer rates and ICMP Ping round-trip-times, we end up with page response times and file transfer rates for simulated HTTP/1.0 scenarios. The presented results are especially interesting for a realistic calibration of forthcoming 3G and beyond simulation tools.