A First Look at Commercial 5G Performance on Smartphones [conference paper]

Three computers with locks in a circle illustration

Conference

29th International World Wide Web Conference - April 20, 2020

Authors

Arvind Narayanan (Ph.D. student), Eman Ramadan (Ph.D. student), Jason Carpenter (Ph.D. student), Qingxu Liu (undergrad research assistant), Yu Liu (M.S. student), Feng Qian (assistant professor), Zhi Li Zhang (professor)

Abstract

We conduct to our knowledge a first measurement study of commercial 5G performance on smartphones by closely examining 5G networks of three carriers (two mmWave carriers, one mid-band 5G carrier) in three U.S. cities. We conduct extensive field tests on 5G performance in diverse urban environments. We systematically analyze the handoff mechanisms in 5G and their impact on network performance, and explore the feasibility of using location and possibly other environmental information to predict the network performance. We also study the app performance (web browsing, HTTP download, and volumetric video streaming) over 5G. Our study consumes more than 15 TB of data. Conducted when 5G just made its debut, it provides a “baseline” for studying how 5G performance evolves, and identifies key research directions on improving 5G users’ experience in a cross-layer manner.

Link to full paper

A First Look at Commercial 5G Performance on Smartphones

Keywords

networks, internet technology