Performance modeling of web access over HSPA networks

HSPA (High Speed Packet Access) technologies have become an attractive solution for broadband wireless Internet access. This article evaluates the quality of service experimented by one HSPA user in the presence of multiple terminals sharing the cell capacity. The study focuses on Web traffic and includes analytical and simulation results, providing a basis for dimensioning and admission control in HSPA networks given the intended user quality of experience. The results show that the downlink channel capacity can be shared by several tens of Web users with a satisfactory quality. This is possible because the activity factor of this application (i.e. the time spent in downloading pages compared to the time spent in reading them) is low. However, the results also indicate that the page download time is penalized by the delay associated with the initial procedure for allocating resources on the traffic channels. This problem can be alleviated by an adequate configuration of the timers associated to the resource allocation procedures in HSPA.