Impact of Online Games and M2M Applications Traffic on Performance of HSPA Radio Access Networks

In this paper we presented results of the performance evaluation of the WCDMA/HSPA radio access network when loaded with multiplayer real-time games and M2M applications traffic. Evaluation was done in a live network, on one Node B. Traffic, characteristic for the emerging Machine Type Communication and online multiplayer games, was generated by an application running on 10 mobile phones in parallel, all connected to the Node B under test. The focus of the work was on the RTT (Round Trip Time) and radio cell statistics. The main goal of the cell statistics analysis was to evaluate potential impact of the additional traffic on the performance of 3G/HSPA radio access network. It is concluded that system is designed more for continuous traffic patterns with high data rate in general, than for sporadic traffic patterns with very low data rate, like that of M2M or online gaming nodes. Therefore, the cost of signaling and control activity is dominant in comparison to the data rate.