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Characterization of user activity and traffic in a commercial nationwide Wi-Fi hotspot network: global and individual metrics

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Abstract

This paper presents the characterization of a commercial nationwide Wi-Fi hotspot network. We examine a 5 month long log of user activity and traffic volume collected by a wireless network service provider operating hotspots in restaurants, serviced apartments, hotels and airports all over Australia. We categorize users based on their account time limits to analyze the impact of account stratification on the overall user behavior. A similarity index is developed to compare two datasets of unknown distributions which we then use to quantitatively compare how similar or different various types of accounts are. The user population of the network is found to be highly fluctuating, hence user specific, population independent metrics are proposed to account for this transience. We also introduce metrics to measure account time and data utilization. Key user and traffic statistics are presented for reference.

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Notes

  1. Our efforts to get updated data have been unsuccessful.

  2. Unit price in the context of this paper is 1 Australian Dollar.

  3. See Appendix, Tables 9, 10 and 11.

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Acknowledgements

The authors thank Dr. Jacek Kowalski for providing the measurement data which has made this analysis possible.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Illinois Institute of Technology, Chicago, IL, 60616, USA

    Gautam Divgi & Edward Chlebus

Authors
  1. Gautam Divgi
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  2. Edward Chlebus
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Gautam Divgi.

Appendix: Basics statistics of the analyzed metrics

Appendix: Basics statistics of the analyzed metrics

The basic statistics of the metrics defined in Sect. 5 and analyzed in Sect. 6 are shown in Tables 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12 and 13. The following legend is defined for the table headings:

  • Category: The category analyzed as defined in Sect. 4.1

  • Size: The number of data points analyzed.

  • Range: The range of values for the data points.

  • Mean: The average value of the data points.

  • CV: The coefficient of variation which is defined as \(\frac{Standard\;deviation}{Mean}. \)

Table 4 Daily session profile—individual metric (Sessions/valid user per hour)
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Table 5 Active days per user
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Table 6 Active users per day
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Table 7 Session length
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Table 8 Daily traffic profile—individual metric (MB/valid user per hour)
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Table 9 Session traffic (MB)
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Table 10 Average data rates per session (kbps)
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Table 11 Inbound to outbound traffic ratio
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Table 12 Daily total traffic
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Table 13 Account utilization
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Divgi, G., Chlebus, E. Characterization of user activity and traffic in a commercial nationwide Wi-Fi hotspot network: global and individual metrics. Wireless Netw 19, 1783–1805 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11276-013-0558-0

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