Cellular networks are increasingly carrying Internet traffic for Email and Web browsers, VoIP and online games and streaming video. While there have been some studies characterizing the throughput of cellular data networks, there has been few measurement studies focusing on the latest Evolution-Data Optimized (EVDO) cellular protocol, considering characteristics for throughput-sensitive, latency-sensitive and streaming applications. This paper provides a measurement-based characterization of an EVDO network, using measures of TCP throughput, round-trip times and loss rates, and bandwidth estimation in order to gauge the ability of EVDO to support the QoS requirements of a range of applications. A week's worth of active measurement data reveals throughputs satisfactory for Email and Web browsing, latencies too high for interactive applications, and consistent results for bandwidth estimations, suitable for streaming.

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See also:

• Other Wireless Publications
• Tools and Techniques for Measurement of Networks
• The Wireless Streaming Multimedia page

This material is based upon work supported by the National Science Foundation under Grant Number CNS-0423362. Any opinions, findings and conclusions or recomendations expressed in this material are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Science Foundation (NSF).