Performance evaluation of WAP-based applications over GPRS

Wireless application protocol (WAP) as one application of mobile data services is examined with the aim to provide guidelines for the dimensioning of next generation mobile radio networks. The performance of WAP-based applications over GPRS is evaluated in scenarios where the GPRS radio resources are shared with conventional Internet applications like WWW and e-mail. Simulation results for quality of service measures for the different applications and GPRS system measures are produced with the simulation tool GPRSim that models the application and user behavior, the TCP/IP and WAP protocol architecture, the GPRS protocol architecture and the radio channel. Especially the effect of traffic generated by conventional Internet applications on the WAP performance and vice versa are determined. These results give an estimation of the GPRS network capacity needed for a traffic mix of WAP-based and conventional Internet applications.