Introspecting effect of packet size on end-to-end network delay

Abstract

A message in computer networks is often divided into frames/packets for various reasons. For a store-and-forward network, a suitable packet-size can drastically reduce delay. In this paper, I have investigated the impact of packet size on delivery time. I have shown that delay is a non-linear function of (i) number of hops the packet traverses, (ii) message size and (ii) the number the message is divided into packets. Since, I can’t customize the former two; the last one can suitably be chosen to minimize delay. I found an optimal number of packets that minimizes the delay. Analytical and simulation results show the correctness of the proposed scheme.