Performance analysis of mobile broadband networks with 5g trends and beyond: rural areas scope in Malaysia

This paper presents a multidimensional performance analysis of existing Mobile Broadband (MBB), Third Generation (3G) and Fourth Generation (4G) networks, of rural morphology in Malaysia. The MBB performance analysis is carried out based on measurement data obtained through Drive Tests (DT) conducte...

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Main Authors: Shayea, I., Ergen, M., Azmi, M. H., Nandi, D., El-Salah, A. A., Zahedi, A.
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Published: Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers Inc. 2020
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Online Access:http://eprints.utm.my/id/eprint/86844/
https://dx.doi.org/10.1109/ACCESS.2020.2978048
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spelling my.utm.868442020-09-30T09:08:49Z http://eprints.utm.my/id/eprint/86844/ Performance analysis of mobile broadband networks with 5g trends and beyond: rural areas scope in Malaysia Shayea, I. Ergen, M. Azmi, M. H. Nandi, D. El-Salah, A. A. Zahedi, A. TK Electrical engineering. Electronics Nuclear engineering This paper presents a multidimensional performance analysis of existing Mobile Broadband (MBB), Third Generation (3G) and Fourth Generation (4G) networks, of rural morphology in Malaysia. The MBB performance analysis is carried out based on measurement data obtained through Drive Tests (DT) conducted in rural areas located in three Malaysian states: Johor, Sarawak, and Sabah. The measurement data pertains to the performance of three national Mobile Network Operators (MNOs) in rural areas: Maxis, Celcom, and DiGi. The MBB performance measurement data was collected between January and February using modified Samsung Galaxy S6 smartphone handsets. The measurement data of the 3G and 4G MBB networks are associated with four performance metrics (coverage, latency, satisfaction, and speed) for two MBB services: web browsing and video streaming. During the measurements, each smartphone collected the performance data of only one MBB service. Several classifications were identified to comprehensively monitor the performance of the two MBB services. For the data measurement of the MBB video streaming service, the same YouTube video was alternately played by the same smartphone, but with two different resolutions: 720p (low) and 1080p (high). For the data measurement of the MBB video streaming service, three different webpages (i.e., google, Instagram, and mstar) are sequentially browsed in a loop using another smartphone. This research work is designed to mimic real scenarios where the smartphone in use is not exclusively locked to a single technology while streaming a video or browsing a website. This allows the identification of the coverage for 2G, 3G, and/or 4G technologies within the tested areas. Due to the small amounts of 2G data, we omitted the analysis of 2G technology in the present study. The MBB performance analysis shows that, on average, the 4G network performed much better than the 3G network for all three MNOs throughout all measurement areas considered in this research. For instance, the 4G technology achieved a minimum of 42.4 ms on the web ping average RTT latency, while the 3G only achieved a minimum of 69.9 ms. For the average E2E RTT ping server latency, 4G achieved as low as 33.27 ms, while 3G obtained a minimum of 122.98 ms. The vMOS scores for 4G technology for both web browsing and video streaming services are larger than 3, while the 3G technology had a score of less than 3. The 4G technology can provide an improvement up to a factor of 4.2 and 1.6 in the download speed when browsing a web and streaming a video, respectively, in comparison to the 3G technology. These observations were found to be consistent across all mobile operators. This is unsurprising because we would expect consumers to experience a noticeable improvement when using a mobile broadband service over a 4G network as compared to a 3G network. The presented results provide a general direction for efficiently planning the Fifth Generation (5G) network in rural areas. Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers Inc. 2020 Article PeerReviewed Shayea, I. and Ergen, M. and Azmi, M. H. and Nandi, D. and El-Salah, A. A. and Zahedi, A. (2020) Performance analysis of mobile broadband networks with 5g trends and beyond: rural areas scope in Malaysia. IEEE Access, 8 . pp. 65211-65229. ISSN 2169-3536 https://dx.doi.org/10.1109/ACCESS.2020.2978048 DOI:10.1109/ACCESS.2020.2978048
institution Universiti Teknologi Malaysia
building UTM Library
collection Institutional Repository
continent Asia
country Malaysia
content_provider Universiti Teknologi Malaysia
content_source UTM Institutional Repository
url_provider http://eprints.utm.my/
topic TK Electrical engineering. Electronics Nuclear engineering
spellingShingle TK Electrical engineering. Electronics Nuclear engineering
Shayea, I.
Ergen, M.
Azmi, M. H.
Nandi, D.
El-Salah, A. A.
Zahedi, A.
Performance analysis of mobile broadband networks with 5g trends and beyond: rural areas scope in Malaysia
description This paper presents a multidimensional performance analysis of existing Mobile Broadband (MBB), Third Generation (3G) and Fourth Generation (4G) networks, of rural morphology in Malaysia. The MBB performance analysis is carried out based on measurement data obtained through Drive Tests (DT) conducted in rural areas located in three Malaysian states: Johor, Sarawak, and Sabah. The measurement data pertains to the performance of three national Mobile Network Operators (MNOs) in rural areas: Maxis, Celcom, and DiGi. The MBB performance measurement data was collected between January and February using modified Samsung Galaxy S6 smartphone handsets. The measurement data of the 3G and 4G MBB networks are associated with four performance metrics (coverage, latency, satisfaction, and speed) for two MBB services: web browsing and video streaming. During the measurements, each smartphone collected the performance data of only one MBB service. Several classifications were identified to comprehensively monitor the performance of the two MBB services. For the data measurement of the MBB video streaming service, the same YouTube video was alternately played by the same smartphone, but with two different resolutions: 720p (low) and 1080p (high). For the data measurement of the MBB video streaming service, three different webpages (i.e., google, Instagram, and mstar) are sequentially browsed in a loop using another smartphone. This research work is designed to mimic real scenarios where the smartphone in use is not exclusively locked to a single technology while streaming a video or browsing a website. This allows the identification of the coverage for 2G, 3G, and/or 4G technologies within the tested areas. Due to the small amounts of 2G data, we omitted the analysis of 2G technology in the present study. The MBB performance analysis shows that, on average, the 4G network performed much better than the 3G network for all three MNOs throughout all measurement areas considered in this research. For instance, the 4G technology achieved a minimum of 42.4 ms on the web ping average RTT latency, while the 3G only achieved a minimum of 69.9 ms. For the average E2E RTT ping server latency, 4G achieved as low as 33.27 ms, while 3G obtained a minimum of 122.98 ms. The vMOS scores for 4G technology for both web browsing and video streaming services are larger than 3, while the 3G technology had a score of less than 3. The 4G technology can provide an improvement up to a factor of 4.2 and 1.6 in the download speed when browsing a web and streaming a video, respectively, in comparison to the 3G technology. These observations were found to be consistent across all mobile operators. This is unsurprising because we would expect consumers to experience a noticeable improvement when using a mobile broadband service over a 4G network as compared to a 3G network. The presented results provide a general direction for efficiently planning the Fifth Generation (5G) network in rural areas.
format Article
author Shayea, I.
Ergen, M.
Azmi, M. H.
Nandi, D.
El-Salah, A. A.
Zahedi, A.
author_facet Shayea, I.
Ergen, M.
Azmi, M. H.
Nandi, D.
El-Salah, A. A.
Zahedi, A.
author_sort Shayea, I.
title Performance analysis of mobile broadband networks with 5g trends and beyond: rural areas scope in Malaysia
title_short Performance analysis of mobile broadband networks with 5g trends and beyond: rural areas scope in Malaysia
title_full Performance analysis of mobile broadband networks with 5g trends and beyond: rural areas scope in Malaysia
title_fullStr Performance analysis of mobile broadband networks with 5g trends and beyond: rural areas scope in Malaysia
title_full_unstemmed Performance analysis of mobile broadband networks with 5g trends and beyond: rural areas scope in Malaysia
title_sort performance analysis of mobile broadband networks with 5g trends and beyond: rural areas scope in malaysia
publisher Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers Inc.
publishDate 2020
url http://eprints.utm.my/id/eprint/86844/
https://dx.doi.org/10.1109/ACCESS.2020.2978048
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score 13.211869