MONROE: Measuring Mobile Broadband Networks in Europe

Abstract

Mobile broadband (MBB) networks (e.g., 3G/4G) underpin numerous vital operations of the society and are arguably becoming the most important piece of the communications infrastructure. Given the importance of MBB net- works, there is a strong need for objective information about their performance, particularly, the quality experienced by the end user. Such information is valuable to operators, regulators and policy makers, consumers and society at large, businesses whose services depend on MBB networks, researchers and innovators. In this chapter, we introduce the MONROE1 measurement platform: An open access, European-scale, and flexible hardware-based platform for measurements and custom experimentation on operational MBB networks with WiFi connectivity. The platform consists of mobile and stationary nodes that are flexible and powerful enough to run most measurement and experiments tasks, including demanding applications like adaptive video streaming. Access to such a platform enables accurate, realistic and meaningful assessment of the performance of MBB networks by continuously monitoring these networks via active testing (e.g., delay test, web performance test, download speed test) and context metadata collection (e.g., connection mode, signal strength parameters). The multihoming feature of MONROE allows for the comparison of different networks under similar conditions as well as the exploration of new ways of aggregating providers to increase performance and robustness. In this chapter, we showcase the monitoring capabilities of the platform by analyzing preliminary performance measurement results. Considering that MONROE is open to external users, we further discuss a representative set of measurements and experiments to highlight the potential use cases of the platform. We argue that mobile measurements over operational networks, hence platforms such as MONROE, are crucial not only for characterizing and improving the user experience for services that are running on the current 3G/4G infrastructure, but also for providing feedback on the design of upcoming 5G technologies.