Abstract
Mobile Internet users have two options for connectivity: pay premium fees to utilize 3G or wander around looking for open Wi-Fi access points. We perform an experimental evaluation of the amount of data that can be pushed to and pulled from the Internet on 3G and open Wi-Fi access points while on the move. This side-by-side comparison is carried out at both driving and walking speeds in an urban area using standard devices. We show that significant amounts of data can be transferred opportunistically without the need of always being connected to the network. We also show that Wi-Fi mostly suffers from not being able to exploit short contacts with access points but performs comparably well against 3G when downloading and even significantly better while uploading data.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Preview
Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.
References
IEEE Standard 802.11: 1999(E), Wireless LAN Medium Access Control (MAC) and Physical Layer Specifications (August 1999)
IEEE 802.11n-2009, Wireless LAN Medium Access Control (MAC) and Physical Layer Specifications Enhancements for Higher Throughput (June 2009)
Bychkovsky, V., Hull, B., Miu, A., Balakrishnan, H., Madden, S.: A measurement study of vehicular internet access using in situ wi-fi networks. In: MobiCom 2006: Proceedings of the 12th annual international conference on Mobile computing and networking, Los Angeles, CA, USA, pp. 50–61. ACM Press, New York (2006)
Eriksson, J., Balakrishnan, H., Madden, S.: Cabernet: Vehicular content delivery using wifi. In: MobiCom 2008: Proceedings of the 14th ACM international conference on Mobile computing and networking, pp. 199–210 (2008)
Gass, R., Scott, J., Diot, C.: Measurements of in-motion 802.11 networking. In: WMCSA 2006 (HotMobile) Proceedings of the Seventh IEEE Workshop on Mobile Computing Systems & Applications, Semiahmoo Resort, Washington, USA, pp. 69–74. IEEE Computer Society, Los Alamitos (2006)
Hadaller, D., Keshav, S., Brecht, T., Agarwal, S.: Vehicular opportunistic communication under the microscope. In: MobiSys 2007: Proceedings of the 5th international conference on Mobile systems, applications and services, San Juan, Puerto Rico, pp. 206–219. ACM, New York (2007)
Han, D., Agarwala, A., Andersen, D.G., Kaminsky, M., Papagiannaki, K., Seshan, S.: Mark-and-sweep: Getting the “inside” scoop on neighborhood networks. In: IMC 2008: Proceedings of the 8th ACM SIGCOMM conference on Internet measurement, Vouliagmeni, Greece. ACM, New York (2008)
Jang, K., Han, M., Cho, S., Ryu, H.-K., Lee, J., Lee, Y., Moon, S.: 3G and 3.5G wireless network performance measured from moving cars and high-speed trains. In: ACM Workshop on Mobile Internet through Cellular Networks: Operations, Challenges, and Solutions (MICNET), Beijing, China (October 2009)
Jones, K., Liu, L.: What where wi: An analysis of millions of wi-fi access points. In: Proceedings of 2007 IEEE Portable: International Conference on Portable Information Devices, May 2007, pp. 25–29 (2007)
Jurvansuu, M., Prokkola, J., Hanski, M., Perälä, P.H.J.: HSDPA performance in live networks. In: ICC, pp. 467–471 (2007)
Kozuch, M., Ryan, M., Gass, R., Scholsser, S., O’Hallaron, D., Cipar, J., Stroucken, M., Lopez, J., Ganger, G.: Tashi: Location-Aware Cluster Management. In: First Workshop on Automated Control for Datacenters and Clouds (ACDC 2009), Barcelona, Spain (June 2009)
Liu, X., Sridharan, A., Machiraju, S., Seshadri, M., Zang, H.: Experiences in a 3G network: Interplay between the wireless channel and applications. In: ACM MOBICOM, San Francisco, CA (September 2008)
Nicholson, A.J., Chawathe, Y., Chen, M.Y., Noble, B.D., Wetherall, D.: Improved access point selection. In: MobiSys 2006: Proceedings of the 4th international conference on Mobile systems, applications and services, pp. 233–245. ACM Press, New York (2006)
Ott, J., Kutscher, D.: Drive-thru internet: IEEE 802.11b for automobile users. In: INFOCOM 2004. Twenty-third Annual Joint Conference of the IEEE Computer and Communications Societies, Hong Kong, March 2004, vol. 1, p. 373. IEEE, Los Alamitos (2004)
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2010 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg
About this paper
Cite this paper
Gass, R., Diot, C. (2010). An Experimental Performance Comparison of 3G and Wi-Fi. In: Krishnamurthy, A., Plattner, B. (eds) Passive and Active Measurement. PAM 2010. Lecture Notes in Computer Science, vol 6032. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-12334-4_8
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-12334-4_8
Publisher Name: Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg
Print ISBN: 978-3-642-12333-7
Online ISBN: 978-3-642-12334-4
eBook Packages: Computer ScienceComputer Science (R0)