Moving Beyond Testbeds? Lessons (We) Learned about Connectivity

Keoma Brun-Laguna (1) , Pedro Henrique Gomes (2) , Thomas Watteyne (1) , Pascale Minet (1)

1 EVA - Wireless Networking for Evolving & Adaptive Applications
2 USC - University of Southern California

How realistic is the connectivity in a testbed? The question determines whether a protocol that performs well in a testbed also works in a real-world environment. We answer this question by gathering 11 datasets, a total of 2,873,156 connectivity measurements, on both testbeds and real-world deployments. We determine that real-world deployments feature some quantifiable level of external interference, multi-path fading and dynamics in the environment. We further show that some testbeds do not have all three components. We develop a 5-point checklist to assess the realism of a testbed deployments and introduce the visual "waterfall plot" tool to instantaneously evaluate the connectivity characteristics of a deployment.

Domaines: Systèmes embarqués; Réseaux et télécommunications [cs.NI]

Keoma Brun-Laguna, Pedro Henrique Gomes, Thomas Watteyne, Pascale Minet. Moving Beyond Testbeds? Lessons (We) Learned about Connectivity. IEEE Pervasive Computing, 2018. ⟨hal-01968647⟩