The methodology of measuring throughput of a wireless network

It is important to measure network performance in the whole network life cycle. In the development phase network architects can estimate how the network will work for desired number of users and their needs more accurately. In the implementation and testing phases network engineers can conduct a site survey and thus measure network performance in any given location. Spots with poor performance can be then detected and corrected. The last phase is network monitoring where measuring network performance brings advantages like summary statistics and the ability to predict network congestion, which could be prevented by well-timed network upgrade. This paper introduces new methodology for measuring data throughput of a wireless network in a real environment. The methodology is based on deficiencies found in existing approaches to measure wireless throughput.