Measurements of Application-Perceived Throughput in DAB, GPRS, UMTS and WLAN Environments

Communication services are expected to deliver the desired information in a timely manner without challenging the user’s patience. The corresponding offers by networks are reflected in user- or applications-perceived throughput, which is measured end-to-end for different mobile and wireless networks, namely Digital Audio Broadcast (DAB), General Packet Radio Service (GPRS), Universal Mobile Telecommunication Systems (UMTS), and Wireless Local Area Networks (WLAN). The measurements are based on passive monitoring of throughput statistics for active test traffic and reveal amongst others different kinds of changes of traffic burstiness induced by mobile up- and downlinks and by buffering, respectively. The results will be used for seamless communication, i.e. automatic network selection within the project PIITSA (Personal Information for Intelligent Transport Systems through Seamless communications and Autonomous decisions) aiming at maintaining user-perceived performance and security at the desired levels while keeping communication cost as small as possible.