A Perspective on Traffic Measurement Tools in Wireless Networks

Abstract

To understand the characteristics of the wireless networks, the network usage data from wireless measurement tools are essential. The data collection is a process of collecting the network time-varying information in standardized format and from standard interfaces. The characteristics include signal propagation, received signal quality, network traffic, active applications and mobility of the mobile terminal (MT). The purpose of the measurement is to collect vital data of the wireless network. There are several tools available for this purpose. The most widely used network measurement tools are client side measurement tool, Syslog, Simple Network Management protocol (SNMP), network sniffing, wireless sniffing. This paper discusses the different wireless measurement tools and their benefits and limitation these tools.