Can you GET me now?: estimating the time-to-first-byte of HTTP transactions with passive measurements

Cellular network operators have a compelling interest to monitor HTTP transaction latency because it is an important component of the user experience. Existing techniques to monitor latency require active probing or use passive analysis to estimate round trip time (RTT). Unfortunately, it is impractical to use active probing to monitor entire cellular networks, and RTT is only one component of HTTP latency in cellular networks. This paper presents a new passive technique to estimate HTTP transaction latency that overcomes the scaling and completeness limitations of prior approaches. We validate our technique in an operational cellular network and present results for traffic in the wild.

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