Netradar(.org, .com)

Jukka Manner

Professor, PhD., Aalto Universityjukka.manner@aalto.fi

Background

• Service to measure mobile networks using crowd sourcing• Users measure their connection• “User” = consumer, researcher, government official, consultant, etc.• Anonymous (but you can use a Google login to go back to your measurements)

• Measurements based on best scientific practices• Aggregate data provides a user-based view on

• The actual coverage and quality of mobile networks• Performance of different mobile devices (these have differences!)

• Consumers get their measurement results • Researchers use the data for various studies

• Data sets have been given to individual researchers for study• Researchers have done their own measurements and gotten their own raw data

• Consumer analytics on the web site www.netradar.org• Coverage maps• In the near future also device comparisons, personalized network quality in my area,

customer satisfaction analysis (speed, operator, device), etc. 2/10

Background

• Years of development at Aalto University• Initial designs in 2010• First prototypes in 2011• Launched in Finland 14.6.2012• Global launch 6.3.2013

• Current measurement points• Netradar: distributed globally (servers in EU, US and Asia)• Nettitutka: Finnish national trial, in FUNET and Aalto campus network

• Whole server infrastructure and data bases heavily distributed• Measurement servers protected from overload

• Queues users if needed• Provides very trustworthy results

• Promoted by the Internet Society since July 2014:• http://www.internetsociety.org/blog/tech-matters/2014/07/help-us-understand-global-

internet-experience-download-netradar-today3/10

1. Android2. iOS3. Windows Phone4. Symbian (Belle)5. Meego/N96. Sailfish/Jolla7. Blackberry8. Nokia X (Android-platform)

Runs on all mobile platforms

4/10

Current statistics

• As of September 2014•142’000 client application downloads•4700 different mobile device models•3’640’000 measurements

• Each measurement has over 500 data points, total data base has over 2 billion data points

5/10

Measurements

1. Signal quality and strength2. Download/upload speed (sustainable and peak TCP, a 10 second test)3. Detailed TCP metrics throughout the connection (server side)4. Latency (UDP)5. Location (GPS, cellular, IP address and WIFI positioning)6. Base station information7. Cellular technology8. Operator name, country (MNC, MCC)9. Device information (hardware, operating system)10. Customer experience (Q2/2014)

6/10

Netradar radio details (platform dependent)

A. GSM• Cell ID• Received Signal Strength Indicator (RSSI)

– Arbitrary Strength Unit (ASU)– dBm

B. UMTS• Cell ID• Received Signal Code Power (RSCP)

– Arbitrary Strength Unit (ASU)– dBm

• Ec/No (received energy per chip divided by total noise power density)C. LTE

• Cell ID• Received Signal Receive Power (RSRP)

– Arbitrary Strength Unit (ASU)– dBm

• Received Signal Reference Quality (RSRQ)• Channel Quality Indicator (CQI)• Reference Signal SNR (RSSNR)

7/10

Data transfer measurement

Sustainable throughputSlow-start phase

8/10

What speed to report ?

Over 10 Mbps or 5.3 Mbps ?

9/10

Publications so far

10/10

• Published1. Sonntag, Schulte, Manner, Mobile Network Measurements - It's not all

about Signal Strength, IEEE WCNC, 2013.2. Sonntag, Suomi, Economic feasibility of multipath protocols in mobile

Internet of Things applications, Concurrency and Computation: Practice & Experience, 2013. Vol. 26.

3. Sonntag, Manner, Schulte, Netradar - Measuring the Wireless World, WiNMEE, 2013.

4. Schulte, Manner, Moktam, Särelä, Towards Understanding Interruption and Reordering in HSPA/HSPA+ Networks, IEEE WiMob, 2014.

• Many in the pipeline (2 journal, 2 conf.), and counting…• Tecno-economics, transport protocol performance (=TCP, effect of

handovers, packet reordering, delay spikes, …), multipath/multi-radio connectivity, multipath-TCP, QoE, etc.