Handheld vs. Non-Handheld Traffic: Implications for Campus WiFi Networks

Smartphones, portable music players, and other handheld devices have become a major computing platform. Wherever users go, they utilize 3G and WiFi connectivity to access a wide array of Internet services. The small, mobile nature of these devices results in a unique mix of applicatio n and network usage. As more handheld devices connect to campus, enterprise, and community WiFi networks, administrators need to adjust their network’s configuration to co pe with the unique traffic characteristics of handhelds. Other studies have used WiFi and 3G wireless traces to analyze session, mobility, and performance characteristics for ha ndheld devices. We complement these studies by examining how the content and flow characteristics of handheld traffic elicit network management changes. We analyze packet traces from the University of Wisconsin-Madison campus and computer science wireless networks, with 3 days of traffic for over 32,000 unique devices. Trends for handheld devices include a lower usage of UDP, a high volume of HTTP traffic, and a greater proportion of video traffic. We summarize key implications for network management and suggest configuration changes to maintain suitable network per formance as handheld devices become the primary users of wireless networks.

智能手机，便携式音乐播放器和其他手持设备已成为用户的主要计算平台。其他研究的特征使用了WiFi和3G无线痕迹来分析ha ndheld设备的绩效和性能特征，我们通过研究手持交通的内容和流量特征来补充这些研究。手持设备的趋势包括较低的UDP使用，大量的HTTP流量以及更大的视频流量总结了对网络管理的关键含义，并建议使用配置更改以保持合适的网络性能，因为Handheld设备成为无线网络的主要用户。