A Worldwide Look Into Mobile Access Networks Through the Eyes of AmiGos
Matteo Varvello, Yasir Zaki

TL;DR
This paper introduces AmiGo, a novel, easy-to-deploy test-bed using travelers' Android devices to measure global mobile network performance, revealing significant regional disparities and performance issues.
Contribution
It presents a new mobile network measurement test-bed design that is cost-effective, realistic, and scalable, along with measurement tools and a large-scale deployment study.
Findings
50% of networks have a 40-70% chance of low data rates
Only 20% of networks achieve low latencies
Regional differences show higher CDN times in Asia, Africa, and Americas
Abstract
How does the mobile experience compare between Germany and Nigeria? There is currently no public data or test-bed to provide an answer to this question. This is because deploying and maintaining such test-bed can be both challenging and expensive. To fill this gap, this paper proposes a novel test-bed design called "AmiGo", which relies on travelers carrying mobile phones to act as vantage points and collect data on mobile network performance. The "AmiGo" design has three key advantages: it is easy to deploy, has realistic user mobility, and runs on real Android devices. We further developed a suite of measurement tools for "AmiGo" to perform network measurements, e.g., pings, speedtests, and webpage loads. We leverage these tools to measure the performance of 24 mobile networks across five continents over a month via an "AmiGo" deployment involving 31 students. We find that 50% of…
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Taxonomy
TopicsWireless Networks and Protocols · Advanced MIMO Systems Optimization · ICT in Developing Communities
