Radio webs - Support architecture for mobile web access

Abstract

The speed of Internet access over GSM can be improved by optimizing the performance of TCP/IP connections over the air link, and by using smart proxies for HTTP transfers or other high-level protocols. The goal is to improve the performance as perceived by the user, which implies the minimization of the end-to-end latency. This document describes the setup of GSM data connections and points to a number of possibilities to improve its basic performance. It then takes a more detailed look into WWW access and discusses how a double HTTP proxy can improve the web access over a (very) slow link. This double proxy is made of two parts: a small and simple HTTP proxy on the mobile station and a more complex proxy serving several users from a specific Internet Cellular Access Gateway. The users on the mobile station can configure their usual WWW browser to use the proxy on their computer-the mobile proxy-for accessing Web pages and everything will work as before, except that the overall performance should be considerably better.