FLARP, fast lightweight available rate probing: Benchmarking mobile broadband networks

The quality of service for an end user is defined by the quality of the network links connecting user and service provider. There are several parameters impacting network communication links, a very important one being the available end-to-end bandwidth. Bandwidth measurements in cellular wireless networks with traffic reactive nature, nomadic end users and highly dynamic shared resources is a challenging task. Current methods for such networks are very resource demanding and lack accuracy. In this paper we present a new approach for estimating the current mobile network link capacity and its implementation. It is specifically targeted on generating estimates of the available end-to-end capacity quickly and parsimoniously. The proposed solution combines packet rate and dispersion approaches putting the focus on mobile networks. We verified our technique with validation measurements in laboratory settings as well as in real world Internet access systems. In these measurements our new concept outperformed existing tools.