Measuring Performance of Web Content Delivery Over Mobile Networks

We explored the performance of the web content delivery over the Internet for two Norwegian MBB networks (Telenor and Netcom) using the NorNet Edge measurement infrastructure. The performance was evaluated by measuring the impact of several factors including the radio signal conditions, the ingresspoint placement and the networking topology in cellular networks when accessing the first byte of the web content of the top 50 Alexa websites. The time to get the first byte can be decreased by 80 percent, if the web content is placed close to the ingresspoint. The ingresspoint placement affects the network delay for domestic subscribers by only 10 milliseconds. There is no clear differences in time to get the first byte between 3G or 4G technologies. The time to connect to the web content (to query DNS and establish a TCP connection) is only 20 percent of the time spent to receive the first byte of the web content. The poor radio signal conditions can increase the time to get the first byte of the web content by 100 milliseconds