Experiences with a Wireless Network in MosquitoNet
Stuart Cheshire, Mary Baker · 1995
As the trend towards smaller, lighter and more powerful computers continues, mobility and wireless connectivity become increasingly important. The MosquitoNet project is studying issues in wireless and mobile computing, and this paper presents our performance analysis and observations of one of the emerging wireless technologies: the Metricom Microcellular Digital Network (MCDN). Metricom provides one of the best combinations of bandwidth, coverage area and cost for a wireless data network. We find that the throughput of their radio devices is comparable to a modern modem, but the latency, or round-trip delay, is much higher. The maximum throughput we measured was 30-40 Kbits/second, but the minimum latency for even the smallest IP packet is at least 60ms. We have experimented with both the datagram and Hayes modem emulation modes of Metricom's wireless radios. We are early users of the datagram mode, and our comparisons of these modes confirm two well-known but sometimes forgotten ...