Type of Document	Master's Thesis
Author	Fleming, Todd B.
URN	etd-0521318109613220
Title	Improving the Performance of the world Wide Web over Wireless Networks
Degree	Master of Science
Department	Electrical and Computer Engineering
Advisory Committee	Advisor Name Title Scott F. Midkiff Committee Chair F. Gail Gray none Nathaniel J. Davis none
Keywords	wireless networks WWW MHSP proxy threads protocols
Date of Defense	1996-11-04
Availability	unrestricted
Abstract The World Wide Web (WWW) has become the largest source of Internet traffic, but it was not designed for wireless networks. Documents with large inline images take a long time to fetch over low-bandwidth wireless networks. Radio signal dropouts cause file transfers to abort; users have to restart file transfers from the beginning. Dropouts also prevent access to documents that have not yet been visited by the user. All of these problems create user frustration and limit the utility of the WWW and wireless networks. In this work, a new Wireless World Wide Web (WWWW) proxy server and protocol were developed that address these problems. A client based on NCSA Mosaic connects to the proxy server using the new protocol, Multiple Hypertext Stream Protocol (MHSP). The proxy prefetches documents to the client, including inline images. The proxy also reduces the resolution of large bitmaps to improve performance over slow links. MHSP provides the ability to resume file transfers when the link has been broken then reestablished. The WWWW system was tested and evaluated by running script-controlled clients on different emulated network environments. This new system decreased document load time an average of 32 to 37 percent, depending on network configuration.
Files	Filename       Size       Approximate Download Time (Hours:Minutes:Seconds)     28.8 Modem   56K Modem   ISDN (64 Kb)   ISDN (128 Kb)   Higher-speed Access    etd.pdf 156.24 Kb 00:00:43 00:00:22 00:00:19 00:00:09 < 00:00:01

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