Wireless Inter-System Quality-of-Service: A Practical Network Performance Analysis of 3G and Beyond

Abstract. The provisioning of Quality-of-Service and the interworking between heterogeneous mobile environments will be of vital importance for the future economic success of mobile telecommunications. This paper presents a strictly practical performance evaluation of live and lab UMTS/GPRS/WLAN networks as performed within the project WISQY – Wireless Inter-System Quality-of-Service. We report on experiments using Mobilkom Austria’s UMTS/GPRS live network and compare the results to lab trials results. Moreover, a novel IPv6-based mobility management approach is evaluated through extensive measurements in a dedicated WLAN testbed. Our performance evaluation results provide quantitative information which might be especially useful for the correct calibration of simulation scenarios for 3G and beyond networks.