3G and 3.5G wireless network performance measured from moving cars and high-speed trains

Abstract

In recent years, the world has witnessed the deployment of several 3G and 3.5G wireless networks based on technologies such as CDMA 1x EVolution Data-Only (EVDO), High-Speed Downlink Packet Access (HSDPA), and mobile WiMax (e.g., WiBro). Although 3G and 3.5G wireless networks support enough bandwidth for typical Internet applications, their performance varies greatly due to the wireless link characteristics. We present a measurement analysis of the performance of UDP and TCP over 3G and 3.5G wireless networks. The novelty of our measurement experiments lies in that we took our measurements in a fast moving car on a highway and in a high-speed train running at 300 km/h. Our results show that mobile nodes experience far worse performance than stationary nodes over the same network.