Speedtest-like Measurements in 3G/4G Networks: the MONROE Experience

The goal of this research is to collect a wide range speedtest-like traces for the mobile broadband (MBB) networks, as seen from actual users. In our experiment, the MONROE node contains the core components, with containers that run active experiments. Traffic generated by the applications passes through the selected MiFi modem where a NAT is in place, then goes through the ISP network, and the Internet, toward the selected server. Each node runs also Tstat, a specialized passive sniffer. Tstat captures traffic on each MBB interface and extracts statistics by passively observing packets exchanged with the network. Another instance of Tstat runs on the server side, thus capturing and processing traffic at the other end of the path.

Each MONROE node regularly runs a basic set of experiments. Among these, the HTTP download experiment uses single thread curl to download a 40 MB file for a maximum of 10 seconds from dedicated and not-congested servers in Sweden. we collected measurements during September and October 2016 in four countries and different sites. We consider only stationary nodes. The experiment ran every 3 hours in synchronized fashion. The active application and passive flow-level traces on the client and server sides cannot give us information about the technology and signal strength at the MBB channel during the experiment. Therefore, we use the metadata collected by the MONROE platform to augment the information about the access link status. The MONROE metadata are event-based data collected by passively monitoring the statistics exposed directly from the MiFi modems through their management interface. This data is transmitted and stored in the project database for analysis, and can be easily correlated to each node and interface.