Robust available bandwidth estimation against dynamic behavior of packet scheduler in operational LTE networks

We shed new light on the mechanism behind how the dynamic behavior of a packet scheduler at the link layer in mobile networks degrades the accuracy of conventional available bandwidth (i.e., unused capacity of an end-to-end path) estimation methods that use a probing packet train (i.e., a set of multiple probing packets). Most of the conventional methods, which were originally designed for wired networks, estimate available bandwidth at the receiver by detecting changes of the observed queuing delays of probing packets. They utilize a microscopic approach in which they check the difference of the queuing delay of each packet on a packet-by-packet basis in order to detect the queuing delay changes. We found that the dynamic behavior of a packet scheduler at the link layer dramatically disturbs the queuing delays observed at the receiver. The disturbed queuing delays make it tremendously difficult for the conventional microscopic approach to detect changes of the delays, resulting in degraded estimation accuracy.