Bandwidth measurement in wireless networks

For active, probing-based bandwidth measurements performed on top of the unifying [P layer, it may seem reasonable to expect the measurement problem in wireless networks, such as ad-hoc networks, to be no different than the one in wired networks. However, in networks with 802.11 wireless links we show that this is not the case. Our experiments show that the measured available bandwidth is dependent on the probe packet size (contrary to what is observed in wired networks). Another equally important finding is that the measured link capacity is dependent on the probe packet size and on the cross-traffic intensity. The study we present has been performed using a bandwidth measurement tool, DietTopp, that is based on the previously not implemented TOPP method. DietTopp measures the end-to-end available bandwidth of a network path along with the capacity of the congested link.