Mobile data offloading: how much can WiFi deliver?

ABSTRACT

This is a quantitative study on the performance of 3G mobile data offloading through WiFi networks. We recruited about 100 iPhone users from a metropolitan area and collected statistics on their WiFi connectivity during about a two and half week period in February 2010. We find that a user is in WiFi coverage for 70% of the time on average and the distributions of WiFi connection and disconnection times have a strong heavy-tail tendency with means around 2 hours and 40 minutes, respectively. Using the acquired traces, we run trace-driven simulation to measure offloading efficiency under diverse conditions e.g. traffic types, deadlines and WiFi deployment scenarios. The results indicate that if users can tolerate a two hour delay in data transfer (e.g, video and image up-loads), the network can offload 70% of the total 3G data traffic on average. We also develop a theoretical framework that permits an analytical study of the average performance of offloading. This tool is useful for network providers to obtain a rough estimate on the average performance of offloading for a given inputWiFi deployment condition.

References

1. Cisco visual networking index: Global mobile data traffic forecast update, 2009-2014, February 2010. http://www.cisco.com/en/US/solutions/collateral/ns341/ ns525/ns537/ns705/ns827/white_paper_c11-520862.html.

Index Terms

• Networks

  • Network types

    • Mobile networks

    • Wireless access networks