An experimental measurement analysis of congestion over converged fixed and mobile networks

Unified convergent networks (for fixed and mobile services) are considered to be an important step towards diversifying the set of services operators can provide for their end-users. Although there has been a huge interest to unified convergent networks among mobile network operators (MNOs) and fixed network operators, the convergence is rather slow due to different factors such as regulation, security, policies, spectrum and competitors. Moreover, each operators have different long term strategies and position themselves based on these policies in unified convergent networks. In this paper, we investigate unified fixed and mobile deployment strategy as a unified service, which is different than typical leased line approach that is frequently utilized with no unification or (convergence). We present different QoS strategies of MNOs before and after unified convergent networks and introduce characteristics, benefits and limitations of these strategies. For validation purposes of various QoS strategies, we build a real-world experimental testbed in an operator environment. Our experimental results reveal how emerging services (broadband Internet, voice, cellular) are affected in the studied QoS policies during congestion inside the unified convergent networks architecture for different MNOs.