Which Factors Affect Access Network Performance?

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Date
2010Author
Sundaresan, Srikanth
Feamster, Nick
Dicioccio, Lucas
Teixeira, Renata
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This paper presents an analysis of the performance of residential
access networks using over four months of round-trip, download,
and upload measurements from more than 7,000 users across four
ADSL and cable providers in France. Previous studies have characterized
residential access network performance, but this paper
presents the first study of how access network performance relates
to other factors, such as choice of access provider, service-level
agreement, and geographic location. We first explore the extent
to which user performance matches the capacity advertised by an
access provider, and whether the ability to achieve this capacity
depends on the user’s access network. We then analyze the extent
to which various factors influence the performance that users
experience. Finally, we explore how different groups of users experience
simultaneous performance anomalies and analyze the common
characteristics of users that share fate (e.g., whether users that
experience simultaneous performance degradation share the same
provider, city). Our analysis informs both users and designers of
networked services who wish to improve the reliability and performance
of access networks through multihoming and may also assist
operators with troubleshooting network issues by narrowing down
likely causes.