Performance evaluation of Internet applications over the UMTS radio interface

The Universal Mobile Telecommunications System (UMTS) as a 3rd generation mobile telecommunications system is designed to provide high bit data rates to the mobile user. The growing demand of data services in fixed networks is also expected for mobile users. Todays most popular data service is the Internet access. Thus, the mobile Internet access will play a key role to ensure success of UMTS introduction. A typical data service application of the Internet is the World Wide Web (WWW) browsing which is running on a transmission control protocol/Internet protocol (TCP/IP) suite. TCP should ensure a reliable end-to-end communication in systems with limited quality of service guarantee. In contrast, UMTS Terrestrial Radio Access (UTRA) will grant traffic contracts. The performance of a WWW browsing session over the UMTS radio interface is examined including TCP/IP and the detailed radio interface protocol stack. A UMTS radio interface simulator (URIS) is presented and simulations have been performed to evaluate quality of service parameters like delay and packet throughput.