Quality of service concerns in wireless and cellular networks

Abstract

The increasing popularity of wireless and cellular networks multimedia traffic among the consumers has raised new demands for investigation of their underlying Quality of Service (QoS) and Quality of experience (QoE) requirements. In this work, we carry out an application-based analysis of such requirements. Using this approach, we can properly take into account the heterogeneous nature of the underlying networks and the diversity of their traffic. There are several other reasons that justify the use of this approach. For instance, different QoS expectations and user Quality of Experience (QoE) in developed and developing countries can be mentioned. Many parts of the developing world are highly dependent on wireless and cellular technologies, while the provision of socioeconomic services in industrialized countries is generally based on conventional broadband and advanced cellular systems. Clearly, the variations of the underlying networking technologies perturb the QoS and QoE. So, we also examine the relationship between network QoS and QoE to propose a conceptual mapping between them. To achieve these aims, we first evaluate QoS requirements for network-based applications over different access technologies. To reach tangible outcomes, we then focus on UMTS based 3G cellular networks and WiMAX, and analyze several network-based applications with different path loss models, varying number of active users, and diverse types of traffic. The results exhibit that variant technologies, network congestions, user perceptions, and radio channel conditions affect QoS and QoE parameters to a certain extent.