RESPECT:A Real-time Emulator for Service Performance Evaluation in Cellular neTworks

The evaluation and optimization of packet service performance in wireless networks is a complex process, considering the number of heterogeneous entities and protocols that are involved. An emulation platform comes at hand for such performance investigations as it provides a means to see the performance from an end-2-end (E2E), user-perceived Quality Of Service (QoS) point of view. In this paper, the design and implementation of RESPECT, an easily configurable network emulator is described. RESPECT was originally geared towards Universal Mobile Communications System (UMTS) networks, but thanks to its modular and scalable design, it is being extended for generic heterogeneous networks. Using RESPECT, QoS studies can be carried out to study the behavior of different services in different network conditions, identify generalized service dependent performance metrics for already existing services and predict network environment requirements for future services