BreezChirp: Energy efficient Wi-Fi bandwidth estimator for smartphones

Abstract

Mobile data service is a rapidly growing business sector today. Available application bandwidth is an essential metric for managing applications and user experience. However, existing bandwidth measurement tools are ill-suited for the wireless environment due to large variance in environmental conditions, mobility, and energy consumption constraints. In this paper, we modify a known available bandwidth measurement technique - pathChirp to the wireless environment by utilizing the energy management features of the Wi-Fi communication device on smartphones. Our resulting tool BreezChirp is effective and energy conserving. We implemented BreezChrip on smartphones and evaluate its performance through field experiments.