CapProbe: A simple and accurate capacity estimation technique

We present a new capacity estimation technique, called CapProbe. CapProbe combines delay as well as dispersion measurements of packet pairs to filter out samples distorted by cross-traffic. CapProbe algorithms include convergence tests and convergence speed-up techniques by varying probing parameters. Our study of CapProbe includes a probability analysis to determine the time it takes CapProbe to converge on the average. Through simulations and measurements, we found CapProbe to be quick and accurate across a wide range of traffic scenarios. We also compared CapProbe with two previous well-known techniques, pathchar and pathrate. We found CapProbe to be much more accurate than pathchar and similar in accuracy to pathrate, while providing faster estimation than both. Another advantage of CapProbe is its lower computation cost, since no statistical post processing of probing data is required.