Internet DRAFT - draft-ietf-rmcat-wireless-tests
draft-ietf-rmcat-wireless-tests
Network Working Group Z. Sarker
Internet-Draft Ericsson AB
Intended status: Informational X. Zhu
Expires: September 14, 2020 J. Fu
Cisco Systems
March 13, 2020
Evaluation Test Cases for Interactive Real-Time Media over Wireless
Networks
draft-ietf-rmcat-wireless-tests-11
Abstract
The Real-time Transport Protocol (RTP) is a common transport choice
for interactive multimedia communication applications. The
performance of these applications typically depends on a well-
functioning congestion control algorithm. To ensure a seamless and
robust user experience, a well-designed RTP-based congestion control
algorithm should work well across all access network types. This
document describes test cases for evaluating performances of
candidate congestion control algorithms over cellular and Wi-Fi
networks.
Status of This Memo
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This Internet-Draft will expire on September 14, 2020.
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Copyright (c) 2020 IETF Trust and the persons identified as the
document authors. All rights reserved.
This document is subject to BCP 78 and the IETF Trust's Legal
Provisions Relating to IETF Documents
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Table of Contents
1. Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
2. Cellular Network Specific Test Cases . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
2.1. Varying Network Load . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6
2.1.1. Network Connection . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6
2.1.2. Simulation Setup . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7
2.1.3. Expected behavior . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
2.2. Bad Radio Coverage . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
2.2.1. Network connection . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
2.2.2. Simulation Setup . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
2.2.3. Expected behavior . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10
2.3. Desired Evaluation Metrics for cellular test cases . . . 10
3. Wi-Fi Networks Specific Test Cases . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10
3.1. Bottleneck in Wired Network . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12
3.1.1. Network topology . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12
3.1.2. Test/simulation setup . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13
3.1.3. Typical test scenarios . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14
3.1.4. Expected behavior . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15
3.2. Bottleneck in Wi-Fi Network . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15
3.2.1. Network topology . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15
3.2.2. Test/simulation setup . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16
3.2.3. Typical test scenarios . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17
3.2.4. Expected behavior . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18
3.3. Other Potential Test Cases . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19
3.3.1. EDCA/WMM usage . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19
3.3.2. Effect of heterogeneous link rates . . . . . . . . . 19
4. IANA Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20
5. Security Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20
6. Contributors . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20
7. Acknowledgments . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21
8. References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21
8.1. Normative References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21
8.2. Informative References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22
Authors' Addresses . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22
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1. Introduction
Wireless networks (both cellular and Wi-Fi [IEEE802.11]) are an
integral and increasingly more significant part of the Internet.
Typical application scenarios for interactive multimedia
communication over wireless include from video conferencing calls in
a bus or train as well as live media streaming at home. It is well
known that the characteristics and technical challenges for
supporting multimedia services over wireless are very different from
those of providing the same service over a wired network. Although
the basic test cases as defined in [I-D.ietf-rmcat-eval-test] have
covered many common effects of network impairments for evaluating
RTP-based congestion control schemes, they remain to be tested over
characteristics and dynamics unique to a given wireless environment.
For example, in cellular networks, the base station maintains
individual queues per radio bearer per user hence it leads to a
different nature of interactions between traffic flows of different
users. This contrasts with a typical wired network setting where
traffic flows from all users share the same queue at the bottleneck.
Furthermore, user mobility patterns in a cellular network differ from
those in a Wi-Fi network. Therefore, it is important to evaluate the
performance of proposed candidate RTP-based congestion control
solutions over cellular mobile networks and over Wi-Fi networks
respectively.
The draft [I-D.ietf-rmcat-eval-criteria] provides the guideline for
evaluating candidate algorithms and recognizes the importance of
testing over wireless access networks. However, it does not describe
any specific test cases for performance evaluation of candidate
algorithms. This document describes test cases specifically
targeting cellular and Wi-Fi networks.
2. Cellular Network Specific Test Cases
A cellular environment is more complicated than its wireline
counterpart since it seeks to provide services in the context of
variable available bandwidth, location dependencies and user
mobilities at different speeds. In a cellular network, the user may
reach the cell edge which may lead to a significant amount of
retransmissions to deliver the data from the base station to the
destination and vice versa. These radio links will often act as a
bottleneck for the rest of the network and will eventually lead to
excessive delays or packet drops. An efficient retransmission or
link adaptation mechanism can reduce the packet loss probability but
there will remain some packet losses and delay variations. Moreover,
with increased cell load or handover to a congested cell, congestion
in the transport network will become even worse. Besides, there
exist certain characteristics that distinguish the cellular network
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from other wireless access networks such as Wi-Fi. In a cellular
network --
o The bottleneck is often a shared link with relatively few users.
* The cost per bit over the shared link varies over time and is
different for different users.
* Leftover/unused resources can be consumed by other greedy
users.
o Queues are always per radio bearer hence each user can have many
such queues.
o Users can experience both Inter and Intra Radio Access Technology
(RAT) handovers (see [HO-def-3GPP] for the definition of
"handover").
o Handover between cells or change of serving cells (as described in
[HO-LTE-3GPP] and [HO-UMTS-3GPP]) might cause user plane
interruptions which can lead to bursts of packet losses, delay
and/or jitter. The exact behavior depends on the type of radio
bearer. Typically, the default best-effort bearers do not
generate packet loss, instead, packets are queued up and
transmitted once the handover is completed.
o The network part decides how much the user can transmit.
o The cellular network has variable link capacity per user.
* It can vary as fast as a period of milliseconds.
* It depends on many factors (such as distance, speed,
interference, different flows).
* It uses complex and smart link adaptation which makes the link
behavior ever more dynamic.
* The scheduling priority depends on the estimated throughput.
o Both Quality of Service (QoS) and non-QoS radio bearers can be
used.
Hence, a real-time communication application operating over a
cellular network needs to cope with a shared bottleneck link and
variable link capacity, events like handover, non-congestion related
loss, abrupt changes in bandwidth (both short term and long term) due
to handover, network load and bad radio coverage. Even though 3GPP
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has defined QoS bearers [QoS-3GPP] to ensure high-quality user
experience, it is still preferable for real-time applications to
behave in an adaptive manner.
Different mobile operators deploy their own cellular networks with
their own set of network functionalities and policies. Usually, a
mobile operator network includes a range of radio access technologies
such as 3G and 4G/LTE. Looking at the specifications of such radio
technologies it is evident that only the more recent radio
technologies can support the high bandwidth requirements from real-
time interactive video applications. The future real-time
interactive application will impose even greater demand on cellular
network performance which makes 4G (and beyond) radio technologies
more suitable for such genre of application.
The key factors in defining test cases for cellular networks are:
o Shared and varying link capacity
o Mobility
o Handover
However, these factors are typically highly correlated in a cellular
network. Therefore, instead of devising separate test cases for
individual important events, we have divided the test case into two
categories. It should be noted that the goal of the following test
cases is to evaluate the performance of candidate algorithms over the
radio interface of the cellular network. Hence it is assumed that
the radio interface is the bottleneck link between the communicating
peers and that the core network does not introduce any extra
congestion along the path. Consequently, this draft has kept as out
of scope the combination of multiple access technologies involving
both cellular and Wi-Fi users. In this latter case the shared
bottleneck is likely at the wired backhaul link. These test cases
further assume a typical real-time telephony scenario where one real-
time session consists of one voice stream and one video stream.
Even though it is possible to carry out tests over operational
cellular networks (e.g., LTE/5G), and actually such tests are already
available today, these tests cannot in general be carried out in a
deterministic fashion to ensure repeatability. The main reason is
that these networks are controlled by cellular operators and there
exist various amounts of competing traffic in the same cell(s). In
practice, it is only in underground mines that one can carry out near
deterministic testing. Even there, it is not guaranteed either as
workers in the mines may carry with them their personal mobile
phones. Furthermore, the underground mining setting may not reflect
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typical usage patterns in an urban setting. We, therefore, recommend
that a cellular network simulator is used for the test cases defined
in this document, for example -- the LTE simulator in [NS-3].
2.1. Varying Network Load
The goal of this test is to evaluate the performance of the candidate
congestion control algorithm under varying network load. The network
load variation is created by adding and removing network users a.k.a.
User Equipments (UEs) during the simulation. In this test case, each
user/UE in the media session is an endpoint following RTP-based
congestion control. User arrivals follow a Poisson distribution
proportional to the length of the call, to keep the number of users
per cell fairly constant during the evaluation period. At the
beginning of the simulation, there should be enough time to warm-up
the network. This is to avoid running the evaluation in an empty
network where network nodes are having empty buffers, low
interference at the beginning of the simulation. This network
initialization period should be excluded from the evaluation period.
Typically, the evaluation period starts 30 seconds after test
initialization.
This test case also includes user mobility and some competing
traffic. The latter includes both the same types of flows (with same
adaptation algorithms) and different types of flows (with different
services and congestion control schemes).
2.1.1. Network Connection
Each mobile user is connected to a fixed user. The connection
between the mobile user and fixed user consists of a cellular radio
access, an Evolved Packet Core (EPC) and an Internet connection. The
mobile user is connected to the EPC using cellular radio access
technology which is further connected to the Internet. At the other
end, the fixed user is connected to the Internet via wired connection
with sufficiently high bandwidth, for instance, 10 Gbps, so that the
system bottleneck is on the cellular radio access interface. The
wired connection to in this setup does not introduce any network
impairments to the test; it only adds 10 ms of one-way propagation
delay.
The path from the fixed user to the mobile users is defined as
"Downlink" and the path from the mobile users to the fixed user is
defined as "Uplink". We assume that only uplink or downlink is
congested for mobile users. Hence, we recommend that the uplink and
downlink simulations are run separately.
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uplink
++))) +-------------------------->
++-+ ((o))
| | / \ +-------+ +------+ +---+
+--+ / \----+ +-----+ +----+ |
/ \ +-------+ +------+ +---+
UE BS EPC Internet fixed
<--------------------------+
downlink
Figure 1: Simulation Topology
2.1.2. Simulation Setup
The values enclosed within "[ ]" for the following simulation
attributes follow the same notion as in [I-D.ietf-rmcat-eval-test].
The desired simulation setup is as follows --
1. Radio environment:
A. Deployment and propagation model: 3GPP case 1 (see
[HO-deploy-3GPP])
B. Antenna: Multiple-Input and Multiple-Output (MIMO), 2D or 3D
antenna pattern.
C. Mobility: [3km/h, 30km/h]
D. Transmission bandwidth: 10MHz
E. Number of cells: multi-cell deployment (3 Cells per Base
Station (BS) * 7 BS) = 21 cells
F. Cell radius: 166.666 Meters
G. Scheduler: Proportional fair with no priority
H. Bearer: Default bearer for all traffic.
I. Active Queue Management (AQM) settings: AQM [on,off]
2. End-to-end Round Trip Time (RTT): [40ms, 150ms]
3. User arrival model: Poisson arrival model
4. User intensity:
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* Downlink user intensity: {0.7, 1.4, 2.1, 2.8, 3.5, 4.2, 4.9,
5.6, 6.3, 7.0, 7.7, 8.4, 9,1, 9.8, 10.5}
* Uplink user intensity : {0.7, 1.4, 2.1, 2.8, 3.5, 4.2, 4.9,
5.6, 6.3, 7.0}
5. Simulation duration: 91s
6. Evaluation period: 30s-60s
7. Media traffic:
1. Media type: Video
a. Media direction: [Uplink, Downlink]
b. Number of Media source per user: One (1)
c. Media duration per user: 30s
d. Media source: same as defined in Section 4.3 of
[I-D.ietf-rmcat-eval-test]
2. Media Type: Audio
a. Media direction: Uplink and Downlink
b. Number of Media source per user: One (1)
c. Media duration per user: 30s
d. Media codec: Constant Bit Rate (CBR)
e. Media bitrate: 20 Kbps
f. Adaptation: off
8. Other traffic models:
* Downlink simulation: Maximum of 4Mbps/cell (web browsing or
FTP traffic following default TCP congestion control
[RFC5681])
* Unlink simulation: Maximum of 2Mbps/cell (web browsing or FTP
traffic following default TCP congestion control [RFC5681])
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2.1.3. Expected behavior
The investigated congestion control algorithms should result in
maximum possible network utilization and stability in terms of rate
variations, lowest possible end to end frame latency, network latency
and Packet Loss Rate (PLR) at different cell load levels.
2.2. Bad Radio Coverage
The goal of this test is to evaluate the performance of candidate
congestion control algorithm when users visit part of the network
with bad radio coverage. The scenario is created by using a larger
cell radius than that in the previous test case. In this test case,
each user/UE in the media session is an endpoint following RTP-based
congestion control. User arrivals follow a Poisson distribution
proportional to the length of the call, to keep the number of users
per cell fairly constant during the evaluation period. At the
beginning of the simulation, there should be enough amount of time to
warm-up the network. This is to avoid running the evaluation in an
empty network where network nodes are having empty buffers, low
interference at the beginning of the simulation. This network
initialization period should be excluded from the evaluation period.
Typically, the evaluation period starts 30 seconds after test
initialization.
This test case also includes user mobility and some competing
traffic. The latter includes the same kind of flows (with same
adaptation algorithms).
2.2.1. Network connection
Same as defined in Section 2.1.1
2.2.2. Simulation Setup
The desired simulation setup is the same as the Varying Network Load
test case defined in Section 2.1 except the following changes:
1. Radio environment: Same as defined in Section 2.1.2 except the
following:
A. Deployment and propagation model: 3GPP case 3 (see
[HO-deploy-3GPP])
B. Cell radius: 577.3333 Meters
C. Mobility: 3km/h
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2. User intensity = {0.7, 1.4, 2.1, 2.8, 3.5, 4.2, 4.9, 5.6, 6.3,
7.0}
3. Media traffic model: Same as defined in Section 2.1.2
4. Other traffic models:
* Downlink simulation: Maximum of 2Mbps/cell (web browsing or
FTP traffic following default TCP congestion control
[RFC5681])
* Unlink simulation: Maximum of 1Mbps/cell (web browsing or FTP
traffic following default TCP congestion control [RFC5681])
2.2.3. Expected behavior
The investigated congestion control algorithms should result in
maximum possible network utilization and stability in terms of rate
variations, lowest possible end to end frame latency, network latency
and Packet Loss Rate (PLR) at different cell load levels.
2.3. Desired Evaluation Metrics for cellular test cases
The evaluation criteria document [I-D.ietf-rmcat-eval-criteria]
defines the metrics to be used to evaluate candidate algorithms.
Considering the nature and distinction of cellular networks we
recommend that at least the following metrics be used to evaluate the
performance of the candidate algorithms:
o Average cell throughput (for all cells), shows cell utilizations.
o Application sending and receiving bitrate, goodput.
o Packet Loss Rate (PLR).
o End-to-end Media frame delay. For video, this means the delay
from capture to display.
o Transport delay.
o Algorithm stability in terms of rate variation.
3. Wi-Fi Networks Specific Test Cases
Given the prevalence of Internet access links over Wi-Fi, it is
important to evaluate candidate RTP-based congestion control
solutions over test cases that include Wi-Fi access links. Such
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evaluations should highlight the inherently different characteristics
of Wi-Fi networks in contrast to their wired counterparts:
o The wireless radio channel is subject to interference from nearby
transmitters, multipath fading, and shadowing. These effects lead
to fluctuations in the link throughput and sometimes an error-
prone communication environment.
o Available network bandwidth is not only shared over the air
between concurrent users but also between uplink and downlink
traffic due to the half-duplex nature of the wireless transmission
medium.
o Packet transmissions over Wi-Fi are susceptible to contentions and
collisions over the air. Consequently, traffic load beyond a
certain utilization level over a Wi-Fi network can introduce
frequent collisions over the air and significant network overhead,
as well as packet drops due to buffer overflow at the
transmitters. This, in turn, leads to excessive delay,
retransmissions, packet losses and lower effective bandwidth for
applications. Note further that the collision-induced delay and
loss patterns are qualitatively different from those caused by
congestion over a wired connection.
o The IEEE 802.11 standard (i.e., Wi-Fi) supports multi-rate
transmission capabilities by dynamically choosing the most
appropriate modulation and coding scheme (MCS) for the given
received signal strength. A different choice in the MCS Index
leads to different physical-layer (PHY-layer) link rates and
consequently different application-layer throughput.
o The presence of legacy devices (e.g., ones operating only in IEEE
802.11b) at a much lower PHY-layer link rate can significantly
slow down the rest of a modern Wi-Fi network. As discussed in
[Heusse2003], the main reason for such anomaly is that it takes
much longer to transmit the same packet over a slower link than
over a faster link, thereby consuming a substantial portion of air
time.
o Handover from one Wi-Fi Access Point (AP) to another may lead to
excessive packet delays and losses during the process.
o IEEE 802.11e has introduced the Enhanced Distributed Channel
Access (EDCA) mechanism to allow different traffic categories to
contend for channel access using different random back-off
parameters. This mechanism is a mandatory requirement for the Wi-
Fi Multimedia (WMM) certification in Wi-Fi Alliance. It allows
for prioritization of real-time application traffic such as voice
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and video over non-urgent data transmissions (e.g., file
transfer).
In summary, the presence of Wi-Fi access links in different network
topologies can exert different impact on the network performance in
terms of application-layer effective throughput, packet loss rate,
and packet delivery delay. These, in turn, will influence the
behavior of end-to-end real-time multimedia congestion control.
Unless otherwise mentioned, the test cases in this section choose the
PHY- and MAC-layer parameters based on the IEEE 802.11n Standard.
Statistics collected from enterprise Wi-Fi networks show that the two
dominant physical modes are 802.11n and 802.11ac, accounting for 41%
and 58% of connected devices. As Wi-Fi standards evolve over time --
for instance, with the introduction of the emerging Wi-Fi 6 (based on
IEEE 802.11ax) products -- the PHY- and MAC-layer test case
specifications need to be updated accordingly to reflect such
changes.
Typically, a Wi-Fi access network connects to a wired infrastructure.
Either the wired or the Wi-Fi segment of the network can be the
bottleneck. The following sections describe basic test cases for
both scenarios separately. The same set of performance metrics as in
[I-D.ietf-rmcat-eval-test]) should be collected for each test case.
We recommend to carry out the test cases as defined in this document
using a simulator, such as [NS-2] or [NS-3]. When feasible, it is
encouraged to perform testbed-based evaluations using Wi-Fi access
points and endpoints running up-to-date IEEE 802.11 protocols, such
as 802.11ac and the emerging Wi-Fi 6, so as to verify the viability
of the candidate schemes.
3.1. Bottleneck in Wired Network
The test scenarios below are intended to mimic the setup of video
conferencing over Wi-Fi connections from the home. Typically, the
Wi-Fi home network is not congested and the bottleneck is present
over the wired home access link. Although it is expected that test
evaluation results from this section are similar to those as in
[I-D.ietf-rmcat-eval-test], it is still worthwhile to run through
these tests as sanity checks.
3.1.1. Network topology
Figure 2 shows the network topology of Wi-Fi test cases. The test
contains multiple mobile nodes (MNs) connected to a common Wi-Fi
access point (AP) and their corresponding wired clients on fixed
nodes (FNs). Each connection carries either a RTP-based media flow
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or a TCP traffic flow. Directions of the flows can be uplink (i.e.,
from mobile nodes to fixed nodes), downlink (i.e., from fixed nodes
to mobile nodes), or bi-directional. The total number of
uplink/downlink/bi-directional flows for RTP-based media traffic and
TCP traffic are denoted as N and M, respectively.
Uplink
+----------------->+
+------+ +------+
| MN_1 |)))) /=====| FN_1 |
+------+ )) // +------+
. )) // .
. )) // .
. )) // .
+------+ +----+ +-----+ +------+
| MN_N | ))))))) | | | |========| FN_N |
+------+ | | | | +------+
| AP |=========| FN0 |
+----------+ | | | | +----------+
| MN_tcp_1 | )))) | | | |======| FN_tcp_1 |
+----------+ +----+ +-----+ +----------+
. )) \\ .
. )) \\ .
. )) \\ .
+----------+ )) \\ +----------+
| MN_tcp_M |))) \=====| FN_tcp_M |
+----------+ +----------+
+<-----------------+
Downlink
Figure 2: Network topology for Wi-Fi test cases
3.1.2. Test/simulation setup
o Test duration: 120s
o Wi-Fi network characteristics:
* Radio propagation model: Log-distance path loss propagation
model (see [NS3WiFi])
* PHY- and MAC-layer configuration: IEEE 802.11n
* MCS Index at 11: 16-QAM 1/2, Raw Data Rate at 52Mbps
o Wired path characteristics:
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* Path capacity: 1Mbps
* One-Way propagation delay: 50ms.
* Maximum end-to-end jitter: 30ms
* Bottleneck queue type: Drop tail.
* Bottleneck queue size: 300ms.
* Path loss ratio: 0%.
o Application characteristics:
* Media Traffic:
+ Media type: Video
+ Media direction: See Section 3.1.3
+ Number of media sources (N): See Section 3.1.3
+ Media timeline:
- Start time: 0s.
- End time: 119s.
* Competing traffic:
+ Type of sources: long-lived TCP or CBR over UDP
+ Traffic direction: See Section 3.1.3
+ Number of sources (M): See Section 3.1.3
+ Congestion control: Default TCP congestion control [RFC5681]
or constant-bit-rate (CBR) traffic over UDP.
+ Traffic timeline: See Section 3.1.3
3.1.3. Typical test scenarios
o Single uplink RTP-based media flow: N=1 with uplink direction and
M=0.
o One pair of bi-directional RTP-based media flows: N=2 (i.e., one
uplink flow and one downlink flow); M=0.
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o One pair of bi-directional RTP-based media flows: N=2; one uplink
on-off CBR flow over UDP: M=1 (uplink). The CBR flow has ON time
at t=0s-60s and OFF time at t=60s-119s.
o One pair of bi-directional RTP-based media flows: N=2; one uplink
off-on CBR flow over UDP: M=1 (uplink). The CBR flow has OFF time
at t=0s-60s and ON time at t=60s-119s.
o One RTP-based media flow competing against one long-live TCP flow
in the uplink direction: N=1 (uplink) and M = 1(uplink). The TCP
flow has start time at t=0s and end time at t=119s.
3.1.4. Expected behavior
o Single uplink RTP-based media flow: the candidate algorithm is
expected to detect the path capacity constraint, to converge to
the bottleneck link capacity, and to adapt the flow to avoid
unwanted oscillations when the sending bit rate is approaching the
bottleneck link capacity. No excessive oscillations in the media
rate should be present.
o Bi-directional RTP-based media flows: the candidate algorithm is
expected to converge to the bottleneck capacity of the wired path
in both directions despite the presence of measurement noise over
the Wi-Fi connection. In the presence of background TCP or CBR
over UDP traffic, the rate of RTP-based media flows should adapt
promptly to the arrival and departure of background traffic flows.
o One RTP-based media flow competing with long-live TCP flow in the
uplink direction: the candidate algorithm is expected to avoid
congestion collapse and to stabilize at a fair share of the
bottleneck link capacity.
3.2. Bottleneck in Wi-Fi Network
The test cases in this section assume that the wired segment along
the media path is well-provisioned whereas the bottleneck exists over
the Wi-Fi access network. This is to mimic the application scenarios
typically encountered by users in an enterprise environment or at a
coffee house.
3.2.1. Network topology
Same as defined in Section 3.1.1
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3.2.2. Test/simulation setup
o Test duration: 120s
o Wi-Fi network characteristics:
* Radio propagation model: Log-distance path loss propagation
model (see [NS3WiFi])
* PHY- and MAC-layer configuration: IEEE 802.11n
* MCS Index at 11: 16-QAM 1/2, Raw Data Rate at 52Mbps
o Wired path characteristics:
* Path capacity: 100Mbps.
* One-Way propagation delay: 50ms.
* Maximum end-to-end jitter: 30ms.
* Bottleneck queue type: Drop tail.
* Bottleneck queue size: 300ms.
* Path loss ratio: 0%.
o Application characteristics:
* Media Traffic:
+ Media type: Video
+ Media direction: See Section 3.2.3.
+ Number of media sources (N): See Section 3.2.3.
+ Media timeline:
- Start time: 0s.
- End time: 119s.
* Competing traffic:
+ Type of sources: long-lived TCP or CBR over UDP.
+ Number of sources (M): See Section 3.2.3.
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+ Traffic direction: See Section 3.2.3.
+ Congestion control: Default TCP congestion control [RFC5681]
or constant-bit-rate (CBR) traffic over UDP.
+ Traffic timeline: See Section 3.2.3.
3.2.3. Typical test scenarios
This section describes a few test scenarios that are deemed as
important for understanding the behavior of a candidate RTP-based
congestion control scheme over a Wi-Fi network.
a. Multiple RTP-based media flows sharing the wireless downlink:
N=16 (all downlink); M = 0. This test case is for studying the
impact of contention on the multiple concurrent media flows. For
an 802.11n network, given the MCS Index of 11 and the
corresponding link rate of 52Mbps, the total application-layer
throughput (assuming reasonable distance, low interference and
infrequent contentions caused by competing streams) is around
20Mbps. A total of N=16 RTP-based media flows (with a maximum
rate of 1.5Mbps each) are expected to saturate the wireless
interface in this experiment. Evaluation of a given candidate
scheme should focus on whether the downlink media flows can
stabilize at a fair share of the total application-layer
throughput.
b. Multiple RTP-based media flows sharing the wireless uplink: N =
16 (all uplink); M = 0. When multiple clients attempt to
transmit media packets uplink over the Wi-Fi network, they
introduce more frequent contentions and potential collisions.
Per-flow throughput is expected to be lower than that in the
previous downlink-only scenario. Evaluation of a given candidate
scheme should focus on whether the uplink flows can stabilize at
a fair share of the total application-layer throughput.
c. Multiple bi-directional RTP-based media flows: N = 16 (8 uplink
and 8 downlink); M = 0. The goal of this test is to evaluate the
performance of the candidate scheme in terms of bandwidth
fairness between uplink and downlink flows.
d. Multiple bi-directional RTP-based media flows with on-off CBR
traffic over UDP: N = 16 (8 uplink and 8 downlink); M = 5
(uplink). The goal of this test is to evaluate the adaptation
behavior of the candidate scheme when its available bandwidth
changes due to the departure of background traffic. The
background traffic consists of several (e.g., M=5) CBR flows
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transported over UDP. These background flows are ON at time
t=0-60s and OFF at time t=61-120s.
e. Multiple bi-directional RTP-based media flows with off-on CBR
traffic over UDP: N = 16 (8 uplink and 8 downlink); M = 5
(uplink). The goal of this test is to evaluate the adaptation
behavior of the candidate scheme when its available bandwidth
changes due to the arrival of background traffic. The background
traffic consists of several (e.g., M=5) parallel CBR flows
transported over UDP. These background flows are OFF at time
t=0-60s and ON at times t=61-120s.
f. Multiple bi-directional RTP-based media flows in the presence of
background TCP traffic: N=16 (8 uplink and 8 downlink); M = 5
(uplink). The goal of this test is to evaluate how RTP-based
media flows compete against TCP over a congested Wi-Fi network
for a given candidate scheme. TCP flows have start time at t=40s
and end time at t=80s.
g. Varying number of RTP-based media flows: A series of tests can be
carried out for the above test cases with different values of N,
e.g., N = [4, 8, 12, 16, 20]. The goal of this test is to
evaluate how a candidate scheme responds to varying traffic load/
demand over a congested Wi-Fi network. The start times of the
media flows are randomly distributes within a window of t=0-10s;
their end times are randomly distributed within a window of
t=110-120s.
3.2.4. Expected behavior
o Multiple downlink RTP-based media flows: each media flow is
expected to get its fair share of the total bottleneck link
bandwidth. Overall bandwidth usage should not be significantly
lower than that experienced by the same number of concurrent
downlink TCP flows. In other words, the behavior of multiple
concurrent TCP flows will be used as a performance benchmark for
this test scenario. The end-to-end delay and packet loss ratio
experienced by each flow should be within an acceptable range for
real-time multimedia applications.
o Multiple uplink RTP-based media flows: overall bandwidth usage by
all media flows should not be significantly lower than that
experienced by the same number of concurrent uplink TCP flows. In
other words, the behavior of multiple concurrent TCP flows will be
used as a performance benchmark for this test scenario.
o Multiple bi-directional RTP-based media flows with dynamic
background traffic carrying CBR flows over UDP: the media flows
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are expected to adapt in a timely fashion to the changes in
available bandwidth introduced by the arrival/departure of
background traffic.
o Multiple bi-directional RTP-based media flows with dynamic
background traffic over TCP: during the presence of TCP background
flows, the overall bandwidth usage by all media flows should not
be significantly lower than those achieved by the same number of
bi-directional TCP flows. In other words, the behavior of
multiple concurrent TCP flows will be used as a performance
benchmark for this test scenario. All downlink media flows are
expected to obtain similar bandwidth as each other. The
throughput of each media flow is expected to decrease upon the
arrival of TCP background traffic and, conversely, increase upon
their departure. Both reactions should occur in a timely fashion,
for example, within 10s of seconds.
o Varying number of bi-directional RTP-based media flows: the test
results for varying values of N -- while keeping all other
parameters constant -- is expected to show steady and stable per-
flow throughput for each value of N. The average throughput of
all media flows is expected to stay constant around the maximum
rate when N is small, then gradually decrease with increasing
value of N till it reaches the minimum allowed rate, beyond which
the offered load to the Wi-Fi network exceeds its capacity (i.e.,
with a very large value of N).
3.3. Other Potential Test Cases
3.3.1. EDCA/WMM usage
The EDCA/WMM mechanism defines prioritized QoS for four traffic
classes (or Access Categories). RTP-based real-time media flows
should achieve better performance in terms of lower delay and fewer
packet losses with EDCA/WMM enabled when competing against non-
interactive background traffic such as file transfers. When most of
the traffic over Wi-Fi is dominated by media, however, turning on WMM
may degrade performance since all media flows now attempt to access
the wireless transmission medium more aggressively, thereby causing
more frequent collisions and collision-induced losses. This is a
topic worthy of further investigation.
3.3.2. Effect of heterogeneous link rates
As discussed in [Heusse2003], the presence of clients operating over
slow PHY-layer link rates (e.g., a legacy 802.11b device) connected
to a modern network may adversely impact the overall performance of
the network. Additional test cases can be devised to evaluate the
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effect of clients with heterogeneous link rates on the performance of
the candidate congestion control algorithm. Such test cases, for
instance, can specify that the PHY-layer link rates for all clients
span over a wide range (e.g., 2Mbps to 54Mbps) for investigating its
effect on the congestion control behavior of the real-time
interactive applications.
4. IANA Considerations
This memo includes no request to IANA.
5. Security Considerations
The security considerations in [I-D.ietf-rmcat-eval-criteria] and the
relevant congestion control algorithms apply. The principles for
congestion control are described in [RFC2914], and in particular, any
new method must implement safeguards to avoid congestion collapse of
the Internet.
Given the difficulty of deterministic wireless testing, it is
recommended and expected that the tests described in this document
would be done via simulations. However, in the case where these test
cases are carried out in a testbed setting, the evaluation should
take place in a controlled lab environment. In the testbed, the
applications, simulators and network nodes ought to be well-behaved
and should not impact the desired results. It is important to take
appropriate caution to avoid leaking non-responsive traffic with
unproven congestion avoidance behavior onto the open Internet.
6. Contributors
The following individuals contributed to the design, implementation,
and verification of the proposed test cases during earlier stages of
this work. They have helped to validate and substantially improve
this specification.
Ingemar Johansson, <ingemar.s.johansson@ericsson.com> of Ericsson AB
contributing to the description and validation of cellular test cases
during the earlier stage of this draft.
Wei-Tian Tan, <dtan2@cisco.com>, of Cisco Systems designed and set up
a Wi-Fi testbed for evaluating parallel video conferencing streams,
based upon which proposed Wi-Fi test cases are described. He also
recommended additional test cases to consider, such as the impact of
EDCA/WMM usage.
Michael A. Ramalho, <mar42@cornell.edu> of AcousticComms Consulting
(previously at Cisco Systems) applied learnings from Cisco's internal
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experimentation to the early versions of the draft. He also worked
on validating the proposed test cases in a VM-based lab setting.
7. Acknowledgments
The authors would like to thank Tomas Frankkila, Magnus Westerlund,
Kristofer Sandlund, Sergio Mena de la Cruz, and Mirja Kuehlewind for
their valuable inputs and review comments regarding this draft.
8. References
8.1. Normative References
[HO-deploy-3GPP]
TS 25.814, 3GPP., "Physical layer aspects for evolved
Universal Terrestrial Radio Access (UTRA)", October 2006,
<http://www.3gpp.org/ftp/specs/
archive/25_series/25.814/25814-710.zip>.
[I-D.ietf-rmcat-eval-criteria]
Singh, V., Ott, J., and S. Holmer, "Evaluating Congestion
Control for Interactive Real-time Media", draft-ietf-
rmcat-eval-criteria-13 (work in progress), March 2020.
[I-D.ietf-rmcat-eval-test]
Sarker, Z., Singh, V., Zhu, X., and M. Ramalho, "Test
Cases for Evaluating RMCAT Proposals", draft-ietf-rmcat-
eval-test-10 (work in progress), May 2019.
[IEEE802.11]
IEEE, "Standard for Information technology--
Telecommunications and information exchange between
systems Local and metropolitan area networks--Specific
requirements Part 11: Wireless LAN Medium Access Control
(MAC) and Physical Layer (PHY) Specifications", 2012.
[NS3WiFi] "Wi-Fi Channel Model in ns-3 Simulator",
<https://www.nsnam.org/doxygen/
classns3_1_1_yans_wifi_channel.html>.
[RFC5681] Allman, M., Paxson, V., and E. Blanton, "TCP Congestion
Control", RFC 5681, DOI 10.17487/RFC5681, September 2009,
<https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc5681>.
[RFC8174] Leiba, B., "Ambiguity of Uppercase vs Lowercase in RFC
2119 Key Words", BCP 14, RFC 8174, DOI 10.17487/RFC8174,
May 2017, <https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc8174>.
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8.2. Informative References
[Heusse2003]
Heusse, M., Rousseau, F., Berger-Sabbatel, G., and A.
Duda, "Performance anomaly of 802.11b", in Proc. 23th
Annual Joint Conference of the IEEE Computer and
Communications Societies, (INFOCOM'03), March 2003.
[HO-def-3GPP]
TR 21.905, 3GPP., "Vocabulary for 3GPP Specifications",
December 2009, <http://www.3gpp.org/ftp/specs/
archive/21_series/21.905/21905-940.zip>.
[HO-LTE-3GPP]
TS 36.331, 3GPP., "E-UTRA- Radio Resource Control (RRC);
Protocol specification", December 2011,
<http://www.3gpp.org/ftp/specs/
archive/36_series/36.331/36331-990.zip>.
[HO-UMTS-3GPP]
TS 25.331, 3GPP., "Radio Resource Control (RRC); Protocol
specification", December 2011,
<http://www.3gpp.org/ftp/specs/
archive/25_series/25.331/25331-990.zip>.
[NS-2] "ns-2", December 2014,
<http://nsnam.sourceforge.net/wiki/index.php/Main_Page>.
[NS-3] "ns-3 Network Simulator", <https://www.nsnam.org/>.
[QoS-3GPP]
TS 23.203, 3GPP., "Policy and charging control
architecture", June 2011, <http://www.3gpp.org/ftp/specs/
archive/23_series/23.203/23203-990.zip>.
[RFC2914] Floyd, S., "Congestion Control Principles", BCP 41,
RFC 2914, DOI 10.17487/RFC2914, September 2000,
<https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc2914>.
Authors' Addresses
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Zaheduzzaman Sarker
Ericsson AB
Laboratoriegraend 11
Luleae 97753
Sweden
Phone: +46 107173743
Email: zaheduzzaman.sarker@ericsson.com
Xiaoqing Zhu
Cisco Systems
12515 Research Blvd., Building 4
Austin, TX 78759
USA
Email: xiaoqzhu@cisco.com
Jiantao Fu
Cisco Systems
771 Alder Drive
Milpitas, CA 95035
USA
Email: jianfu@cisco.com
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