Cellular data network infrastructure characterization and implication on mobile content placement

Despite the tremendous growth in the cellular data network usage due to the popularity of smartphones, so far there is rather limited understanding of the network infrastructure of various cellular carriers. Understanding the infrastructure characteristics such as the network topology, routing design, address allocation, and DNS service configuration is essential for predicting, diagnosing, and improving cellular network services, as well as for delivering content to the growing population of mobile wireless users. In this work, we propose a novel approach for discovering cellular infrastructure by intelligently combining several data sources, i.e., server logs from a popular location search application, active measurements results collected from smartphone users, DNS request logs from a DNS authoritative server, and publicly available routing updates. We perform the first comprehensive analysis to characterize the cellular data network infrastructure of four major cellular carriers...

• Type: Journal
• Year: 2011
• Where: SIGMETRICS
• Authors: Qiang Xu, Junxian Huang, Zhaoguang Wang, Feng Qian, Alexandre Gerber, Zhuoqing Morley Mao
• Keywords: Cellular Infrastructure, Content Servers, Hardware, Mobile Wireless Users, SIGMETRICS 2011