Effects of Different Packet Sizes in Mobile IPv6 Real-time Communication

Bi-Lynn Ong, Suhaidi Hassan Faculty of Information Technology Universiti Utara Malaysia 06010 Kedah, Malaysia {s90387@ss.uum.edu.my|suhaidi@uum.edu.my} Abstract- This paper describes the performance of Internet protocol version 6 (IPv6) over the wireless Internet. The performance of mobile IPv6 is evaluated using the ns-2 network simulator. The simulation experiment investigates how different packet sizes affect the throughput and packet latency. The result of the experiment shows that as the size of packet increases, normalized throughput increases and inversely normalized packet latency decreases. From the result of the experiment, we propose the appropriate packet size in transmitting real-time application over mobile IPv6 environment.
Keywords: tency Mobile IPv6, packet size, packet labe covered in this article. In Section 3, we discuss on the experimental design and setup. Then, we present the result of the simulation experiment and discussion in Section 4. Section 5 concludes this paper.

2. Background and Related Work

The basic mobile IPv6 mobility models are discussed in details in [3], [4], [5], [8]. Toh et al. [7] examined the impact of varying packet size, beaconing interval and route hop count on route discovery time, communication throughput, end-to-end delay and packet loss. The experiment results reveal that the packet size affects the performance of the endto-end ad hoc IPv4 networks, whereas the beaconing interval has little impact on throughput, end-to-end delay and route discovery time. Since the different packet sizes affect the end-to end ad hoc IPv4 networks, we believe that different packet sizes also affect the performance of wireless 802.11b LAN in mobile IPv6 environment. Hence, we propose a simulation experiment to examine how different packet sizes affect the throughput and the packet latency in 802.11b mobile IPv6 environment. The simulation experiment shows that the result agrees with the authors. ElGebaly [2] studied multimedia performance over the Internet. The author investigated how packet length, inter-arrival time, jitter, overhead and burstiness affect the multimedia performance. The experiment conducted by the author in the wired IPv4 network using H.323 protocol. Since packet length and inter-arrival time affect the performance of wired IPv4 network, we believe that packet sizes can affect the performance of

1. Introduction
The Internet protocol (IP) transmits various forms of packet sizes. The commonly used packet sizes are 512 bytes, 1024 bytes, 1280 bytes and 1500 bytes. Different packet sizes can cause variation in packet latency and throughput. Selecting inappropriate packet sizes can cause higher packet latency and packet loss. Consequently, higher packet latency and packet loss can degrade the mobile IPv6 performance. Having understood the importance of selecting appropriate packet size in sending real-time packet over IP, we conduct a simulation experiment to investigate the efect of different packet sizes on the packet latency and throughput in mobile IPv6 environment. The rest of this article is organized as follows. In Section 2, we present the background and the issues to

The topology is divided into 2 domains, rst domain with 1 cluster and second domain with 4 clusters. Each cluster has 1 node except the third cluster and fth cluster, which have 2 nodes. The third cluster consists of the home agent (HA) node and the mobile node (MN) that are attached to the same hierarchical cluster. The fth cluster consists of access router 1 (AR1) and access router 2 (AR2) that are attached to the same hierarchical cluster. Thus in this simulation experiment setup, it has a total of 7 nodes with the other 3 nodes attached Elaarag [1] conducted a survey study on Transmisto the different hierarchical cluster. sion Control Protocol (TCP) performance over mobile CN is the node that wishes to communication with IPv4 networks. The simulation experiment results show MN. In the experimental setup, CN is in the hierarchithat TCP is not suitable for mobile hosts and their cal cluster 0.0.0. MN is in the hierarchical cluster 1.1.1 wireless links in sending real-time application. Hence, (home cluster). The HA of the MN is in the hierarchiin our simulation experiment, we evaluate the perforcal cluster 1.1.0. MN carries the same hierarchical admance of constant bit rate (CBR) over mobile networks. dress of the HA wherever it moves. N1 and N2 are the CBR that runs over User Datagram Protocol (UDP) is routers with different hierarchical addresses 1.0.0 and suitable to carry real-time packet. 1.2.0. CN and HA connect to N1. N1 is connected to Our motivation in conducting a simulation experN2, where AR1 and AR2 are connected to N2. AR1 iment is to investigate the performance of mobile and AR2 are the BSs. AR1 and AR2 used the same IPv6 when correspondent node (CN) sends different hierarchical address 1.3.0 and 1.3.1 respectively. packet sizes. The objective of the simulation experiThe network model is simulated using ns-2. The nsment is to examine how different packet sizes affect 2 version used for this simulation is ns-2.1b6. ns-2.1b6 the throughput and packet latency. The evaluation is deployed with Mobiwan extension and NOAH agent provides information to the researchers in selecting [6]. the appropriate packet size in mobile IPv6 environment. The BS signal strength has to be overlapped with each other. If the radiation of the signal strength is not 3. Experiment Design and Setup overlapped, then the communication between CN and MN is disconnected in the middle of the communicaFigure 1 shows the network topology used in the sim- tion when MN moves to the area without radiation sigulation experiment. This topology reects the setup of nal. Thus, ns-2.1b6 is deployed with the NOAH agent, an open space wireless local area network (LAN) envi- which ensures that the radiation of the signal strength is ronment. In wireless LAN, the base station (BS) com- overlapping. Duplex link is the link that enables packet to ow in municates in the length of not more than 30m in diameter. In this simulation experiment, the wireless network both directions from sender to receiver and receiver to technology is IEEE 802.11b with the bandwidth of 2 sender. In this network topology, the MN sends binding Mbps. The network topology is designed in IPv6 envi- update (BU) back to the HA and CN when MN performs handover. MN also updates its location with HA ronment. by sending BU from time to time to the home network. Thus, the link is set to full duplex link. 0.0.0 1.3.0 1.1.0 CN and HA are connected to node N1 using wired CN AR2 MN full duplex link with 100 Mbps. This represents high 1.2.0 1.0.0 100Mbps, 2ms 2Mbps, 2ms speed Ethernet LAN. The link delay in the full duplex N2 N1 link is set to 2 ms. CN carries CBR trafc. This exper1.5Mbps, 2ms imental setup represents networks that carry real-time 2Mbps, 2ms AR1 HA 100Mbps, 2ms application. Queue management is set to droptail since 1.1.0 1.4.0 CN and MN are transmitting real-time applications. N1 and N2 connect with full duplex link with 1.5 Figure 1: Topology Mbps that represents multi-Megabit T1 service. Queue

real-time applications in IPv6 network. In [2], trace les are obtained from the real H.323 IPv4 network. In our simulation experiment, trace les are collected from simulation experiment because conducting experiments in the real networks may disrupt the operational network. After we collect the trace les from the simulation experiment, we further analyze the trace les to investigate how the packet sizes affect the performance over the IPv6 wireless Internet.

management is also set to droptail because it is transmitting real-time packet. The link delay is set to 2 ms. Both N1 and N2 are set to null agents that send CBR packet. The connection between N1 and N2 is in wide area network (WAN). AR1 and AR2 are connected to N2. It is connected using full duplex link with 2Mbps with 2ms that represents the bandwidth and delay of 802.11b technology. The MN rst attaches to AR1, then MN moves with random motion. AR1 and AR2 are set to null agents that send CBR packet. MN is set as a null agent receiving CBR trafc in the simulation experiment. MN is set to random motion so that MN freely moves to represent the real situation of the communication between CN and MN. This simulation experiment uses CBR as the source trafc. CBR encoding means that the rate at which the codec output data is constant. It is an application layer component that generates constant trafc during the simulation. CBR is useful for real-time audio and video content on limited capacity channels since it is the maximum bit rate that matters, not the average. Thus, CBR is used to take the advantage of all of the capacity. Our experiment investigates how different CBR packets affect the packet latency and throughput of the mobile IPv6 802.11b wireless LAN. In our simulation experiment, the different packet sizes used are 512 bytes, 1024 bytes, 1280 bytes and 1500 bytes. Since 1500 bytes is the maximum transfer unit (MTU) of Ethernet LAN, we vary the packet size within 512 bytes to 1500 bytes. The simulation model is suggested to run on the realtime audio and video over IP trafc. Thus the transport layer packets are set as UDP because most of the realtime packets are running on UDP. TCP congestion control may cause packets to queue at the router and may cause delay to the packets. This causes distortion to the real-time data. In the simulation experiment, CN sends the CBR trafc. The packets are transmitted through the networks until the packets reach MN. The simulation is executed long enough until it reaches the steady state. Different packet sizes with the same amount of data are sent in the simulation experiment. The trace les from the simulation experiment are collected and analyzed. In the next section, we present the result of the simulation experiment and the discussion of the results obtained from the simulation experiment.

4. Results and Discussions

Table 1 presents the result of the simulation experiment. From Table 1, we observe that as the packet size increases, the throughput increases. The reason is that sending the same amount of data with smaller packet size, more packet overheads are sent over the IP. Table 1 also shows that as the packet size increases, the packet latency also increases. The reason is because as the packet size increases, the networks need more time to send the packet over the IP. Packet Size, (bytes) 512 1024 1280 1500 Throughput, (%)

92.60 96.08 96.81 97.22

Average Packet Latency (s) 0.160 0.300 0.369 0.429

Table 1: Throughput and packet latency for different packet sizes

Packet Size versus Normalized Throughput and Inversely Normalized Packet Latency 1 Normalized Throughput Inversely Normalized Packet Latency

0.9

0.8 Normalized value

0.7

0.6

0.5

0.4

0.3 500

600

700

800

900 1000 1100 Packet size (byte)

1200

1300

1400

1500

Figure 2: Graph on simulation result The IP performance is proportional to the throughput and inversely proportional to the packet latency. Figure 2 presents a plot of packet size versus normalized throughput and inversely normalized packet latency. The plot shows that as the packet size increases, the normalized throughput increases and the inversely normalized packet latency decreases. The curves from

less Network. IEEE Transactions on Wireless ComFigure 2 suggest that packet size 512 bytes is the suitmunications, 1(3):402414, 2002. able packet size to send the CBR packet over the mobile IPv6 environment. This is because the normalized throughput and inversely normalized packet latency in- [8] S. Zeadally and D. Mavatoor. Mobile IPv6 Support for Highly Mobile Hosts. Proceedings of the tercept at point 512 bytes. IASTED International Conference, pages 144150, Our result shows that packet size 512 bytes can September 2003. improve the performance of mobile IPv6. Therefore, we propose that real-time packets are packetized into 512 bytes.

5. Conclusion
In this paper, we present the result of simulation experiment on mobile IPv6 in sending real-time application. In the simulation experiment, different packet sizes are sent over the mobile IPv6 environment. The simulation result shows that among the different packet sizes, packet size 512 bytes is the most suitable size to send the CBR packets that carry the real-time audio and video packets. Thus, we propose that for mobile IPv6 environment that carries real-time audio and video packets, the packet size is packetized into 512 bytes when it is sent to the wireless IPv6 network.

References
[1] H. Elaarag. Improving TCP Performance over Mobile Network. ACM Computing Surveys, 34(3):357374, 2002. [2] H. ElGabaly. Characterization of Multimedia Streams of an H.323 Terminal. Intel Technology Journal, 2nd Quarter 1998. [3] Z. G. Kan, J. Ma, J. Luo, and J. P. Hu. Mobile IPv6 and Some Issues for QoS. Internet Society, 2001. [4] J. F. Kurose and K. W. Ross. Computer Networking A Top-Down Approach Featuring the Internet. Addison Wesley, 2nd edition, 2002. [5] B. L. Ong and S. Hassan. Mobile IPv6 Architectures and the QoS Issue on Handover Delay. National Seminar 2002, Universiti Teknologi Mara, November 2003. [6] B. L. Ong and S. Hassan. Mobile IPv6 Simulation Using ns-2. NS-2 Workshop, UPM, Malaysia, 2004. [7] C. K. Toh, M. Delvar, and D. Allen. Evaluating Communication Performance of an Ad Hoc Wire-