User-Perceived Performance of Web-Browsing and

Using analysis and simulation, we study the performance of Web-browsing and interactive data applications as perceived by the users of a shared packet access network. To characterise the user experience, we use end-to-end page delays and introduce a robust and useful measure called Equivalent Circuit Rate (ECR). The ECR for a user of a shared packet access network is the dedicated access circuit bit rate required to achieve the same user experience. Our analysis uses a simple closed queueing network model and the theoretical results agree well with simulations of TCP-based Web browsing workloads sharing a third generation EDGE (Enhanced Data Rates for GSM Evolution) cellular wireless data channel. The number of interactive data users that can be supported with acceptable performance is about 80% to 90% of the ratio of the shared channel rate to the average user rate. ECR is closely approximated by effective channel rate*(1-utilization).