TELCOM 2120 Network Performance Spring 2004
Course Project Descriptions
The TELCOM 2120 project is to be completed no later than Friday April 23. The project can be an
individual or a group (3 or less) effort covering an aspect of network performance in depth. The basic thrust
of the project is to complete a mini-performance study utilizing one or more of the standard performance
techniques (i.e., measurements, queueing, or simulation) discussed in class. A variety of projects are
possible and each group should turn in a FINAL REPORT documenting the project. The FINAL Report
should contain the following sections:
(a) introduction - giving background on the project;
(b) goals/problem statement - explaining the purpose of the study;
(c) results - detailing the methods used and the results; and
(d) conclusions.
Some project suggestions are given below, the equipment associated with each project is listed at
http://www.sis.pitt.edu/~kornv/equipment.htm
I. Measurement Oriented Projects
1. Voice over IP WAN project
Use the NIST net package on a PC with two line cards and emulate a WAN cloud and see the effects on
Voice over IP traffic http://www.antd.nist.gov/itg/nistnet/
NIST NET
Workstation
or
PC
Workstation
or
PC
Specifically consider the effects of packet loss vs. quality, delay and delay jitter vs. quality. Measure the
quality both objectively and subjectively (i.e., Mean opinion score), try to determine which network
performance metric the subjective quality is most sensitive too (limit 2 groups of 3) A variation on this is to
replace the NIST NET WAN with a network of RSVP routers and see the effect of various RSVP parameters
on the performance.
2. Multimedia over WAN project
Repeat the configuration of project 1 above but benchmark the performance of remote lecture using
webcam video traffic and a Powerpoint presentation using NetMeeting. Consider the effects of packet loss
vs. quality, delay and delay jitter vs. quality. Measure the quality both objectively and subjectively (i.e., Mean
