2017 4th International Conference on New Media Studies
Yogyakarta, Indonesia, November 08-10, 2017
Performance Comparison of Wi-Fi and LTE for
Internet of Things on Named Data Networking
Asri Samsiar, Ihsan Ibrahim, Arief Luthfi Aulia, Riri Fitri Sari
Department of Electrical Engineering, Faculty of Engineering
Universitas Indonesia
Depok 16424, Indonesia
asri.samsiar@ui.ac.id
Abstract— The Internet of Things (IoT) is connecting tons of
devices connected to internet, with high dynamicity and
heterogeneity devices. IoT presents significant challenges from the
wireless communications perspective besides the limitation in IP
resource. It calls for new connection architecture based on data-
centric approaches, namely Named Data Networking (NDN).
Besides the Wi-Fi connection that widely used in IoT, NDN is
challenged by the opportunity to re-architect the latest mobile
network, that is Long-Term Evolution (LTE), through named-
based communication. LTE could be a solution of limitation on
Wi-Fi coverage area. In this paper, the experiment is conducted to
compare the performance of NDN architecture over Wi-Fi and
LTE, in order to show the possibility of LTE running over NDN.
NdnSIM tool has been used to simulate the scenarios on IoT
devices. Due to its simulation performed in a small-scale network
for the simulation scenario, the result shows that the collection
time between Wi-Fi and LTE over NDN, with varied number of
producers, is the same. However, LTE has an advantage in further
coverage distance that Wi-Fi connection cannot achieved or
performed.
Keywords— Internet of Things, LTE, Named Data Network, Wi-
Fi, Wireless Networks.
I. INTRODUCTION
The main concept of Internet of Things (IoT) is connecting
“things” or everything from all of the world with internet, which
is appeared as tons of heterogeneous devices. These massive
number of devices have different characteristics from the current
internet devices, due to constrains of devices resources,
requirement of support for mobility and traffic type diversity [1],
[2], [3]. The host-to-host communication among IoT devices is
challenging, due to its high volume of small exchanged data [4].
There is a need for advanced network technology especially in
wireless environment for mobile devices.
In the last decade, the evolution of advanced mobile devices,
such as smartphone, tablet, etc. has caused growth of IoT traffic,
in both the amount of traffic and the user demand [5], [6]. To
meet the requirement, the standardization of mobile network
such as Wi-Fi and LTE has been improved continuously.
Recently, many researchers have proposed and evaluated the
performance of IP-based solution with LTE enhancement [6],
[7] and the coexistence of LTE and Wi-Fi [5], [8]. The
communication over IP is complex on a large-scale IoT
environment, because of the addressing scheme, IP subnet, even
routing security and protocol through all the heterogeneous and
978-1-5090-6284-3/17/$31.00 ©2017 IEEE
interconnecting devices. As an alternative, Information Centric
Networking (ICN) is proposed to redesign the internet by
replacing its host-centric model with data-centric model [9],
[10], [11].
Unlike the IP-based systems, communication in ICN takes
place between consumer (as a user) and producer (as a publisher)
using two simple types of messages, namely Interest and Data.
The content identification is provided by a unique name, rather
than an IP address which is limited resource. Every node is
assigned to what-is-the-data (which content is expected), and not
where-is-the-destination (which define the addresses and hosts).
One of the most promising information-centric based is Named
Data Networking (NDN). NDN is emerging as a potential
solution to future Internet architectures. NDN can potentially
address the limitations of the existing IP networks through
simple communication, which emphasizes on the content itself
rather than its container (i.e., host) or channel (i.e., connection).
By including the content name in each packet, NDN enables
features such name-based routing, data-centric security,
multipath forwarding and in-network caching [1], [4].
Furthermore, because it is natively support multicasting and
mobility, NDN is a promising solution to suit the requirements
of the IoT environment.
In addition, NDN offers and provides an opportunity to shift
the traditional mobile network architecture using simple and
scalable architecture. By implementing NDN protocol, wireless
communication obtains benefits through optimized design and
efficiency of content delivery. Although Wi-Fi is fully
optimized by NDN [12], there is still a limitation that Wi-Fi has,
that is the coverage area. This limitation can be an obstacle when
the IoT devices are placed on out of range area, so that it cannot
communicate between each other device.
Moreover, the NDN integration with the latest mobile
network technology, i.e. LTE, that built as all-IP network, is still
a challenge. Nonetheless, LTE was designed to establish high-
speed broadband data service with very low latency. Besides
that, numerous LTE features are provided to address the
requirement of IoT, such as power saving, overload control,
signaling reduction, complexity reduction, and coverage
enhancement [7]. With those abilities, LTE can be a solution of
limitation on Wi-Fi coverage area.
In this paper, the research objective is to study the
performance of NDN architecture over LTE mobile network,
1
and compare it with the Wi-Fi connection. This study is to Architecture (NDN). This concept shift gives effect in the way
propose a new possibility of network architecture which of design, develop, and deploy networks and applications [15].
improve the network performance at the IoT environment. For
this purpose, we develop a simulation framework based on Nowadays, internet architecture is like an hourglass,
ndnSIM to analyze the impact of IoT characteristics. In this centered in the IP layer, slimmed down, and centered on top. It
simulation, it focused on varying the number of producers. allows the internet growth, due to technological innovations on
the top and bottom layers independently. Comparisons between
The rest of the paper is organized as follows. In Section 2 is architecture of IP and NDN architecture can be seen in Figure 1.
briefly explained about IoT, NDN and mobile network used, i.e.
Wi-Fi and LTE. Section 3 described the scenarios of the The NDN architecture route and forward packets by name,
experiment. The experiment or simulation results and so it can eliminate three major problems caused by the address
discussions is explained in Section 4. Then, the final section, that space fatigue in an IP architecture, NAT traversal, and address
is Section 5 consists of the conclusion of this paper. management. Unlike the case with TCP/IP, which allows the
responsibility for security to the uppermost layer, NDN secures
II. IOT, NDN AND WIRELESS NETWORKS the data itself by requiring data producers to cryptographically
sign each data packet [15]. The publisher's signature ensures
A. Internet of Things (IoT) integrity and enables the determination of the original data,
Vermesan and Friess in stated that the Internet of Things enabling consumer confidence in the data separated from how
(IoT) is a concept and paradigm that can be presented in various or from which the acquisition has been conducted [15].
environments with wireless or wired connection. With a unique
addressing scheme, all components can interact and work with
other objects to create new applications or services and achieve
common goals [13]. In this context, the challenge of future
research and development is to create a large-scale intelligent
world, where real, digital, and virtual things can come together
to create a smart environment. The goal of IoT is to get
everything connected anywhere, anytime, by anyone using any
network and service [13].
The IEEE has a portfolio of over 900 active standards and
more than 500 standards under development. In IoT research,
there are more than 140 existing relevant standards and projects.
One of the projects directly related to IoT is IEEE P2413. Fig. 1. NDN architecture [15]

The goals for the IEEE P2413 working group that developed
this standard are follows:
• To accelerate the growth of the IoT market by enabling
cross-domain interaction and platform unification
through increased system compatibility, interoperability
and functional exchangeability.
• To define an IoT architecture framework that covers the
architectural needs of the various IoT application
domains.
• To increase the transparency of system architectures to
support system benchmarking, safety and security
assessments.
Communication in NDN is started by receivers through the
exchange of two types of packets: Interest and Data. The content
identification is provided by a unique name. First, the consumer
side will request the needed data into an Interest packet and
sends it to the network with a unique name of Data. After that,
the NDN router will send this interest packet to all producer for
finding the needed data. When there is a producer that has the
needed data, exactly the same with the name of the interest
packet, producer will reply a data packet that contains both the
name and the content, together with a signature by the producer's
key which binds the two which can be seen in Figure 2. This
This Data packet travels in reverse direction following the same
path taken by the Interest packet [15].

• To reduce industry fragmentation and create a critical

mass of multi-stakeholder activities around the world,
and leverage the existing body of work.
With the trend and development of IoT to connect everything
with specific function, it causes the number of devices and their
addresses to increase massively and the IP allocation is a limited
resource. Therefore, a new network architecture model, such as
Named Data Networking is needed [14].
Fig. 2. NDN packets [15]
B. Named Data Networking (NDN)
Named Data Networking Services (NDN) is introduced by C. Mobile Networks
Van Jacobson in 2006. This is the evolution of Host-Centric
The rapid increase of the mobile networks usage over the
Network Architecture (IP) into a Data-Centric Network
years, has caused massive effects of the performance

2
requirements [6], [11]. Advanced mobile devices, which play a
major role as content demanders, continuously call for higher
bandwidth demand. There are three major technologies for
mobile wireless networks, i.e. short-range communications
(IEEE 802.15.4 or Bluetooth), medium-range communications
(Wi-Fi and WiMAX), and long-range communications
(LTE/4G/5G and satellite) [10].
The mobile technologies are originally created to provide
wireless data communication among telephone devices. Wi-Fi
was designed for small coverage wireless services such as home,
office, classroom etc. To get connected to the Wi-Fi network, all
the devices must remain maximum within 300 feet of a wireless
router. LTE has a wider network coverage rather than Wi-Fi.
LTE was designed to support wireless communication between
mobile devices across the nation. LTE uses mobile gateways
such as SGSN, MME, SGW, PGW whereas Wi-Fi uses Access
Points, controllers, etc. Both Wi-Fi and LTE have different
network architecture which determine each characteristics and
performance.
1) Wi-Fi: It is a local area wireless technology, which
follows the IEEE 802.11 standards. Wi-Fi stands for Wireless
Fidelity, which is using 2.4 GHz UHF and 5 GHz SHF radio
waves for data exchange or Internet connection [8]. Wi-Fi was
initially proposed for mobile devices and LANs with
proliferated area. For transmitting wireless signal to the device
that has an adapter card, an access point (base station) is
required. A device such as wireless-enabled computer will
connect to the access point that available at specified distance
and get the internet access needed by the user.
To allow wireless communication between mobile devices
and LAN, the open standard technology was created, namely
Wireless Local Area Networks (WLAN). The specifications of
WLAN are defined by IEEE and are called as IEEE 802.11,
which addresses physical and data link layer. IEEE has released
many standards including 802.11b, 82.11g, 802.11n, and
802.11ac as the newest Wi-Fi standard.
2) Long Term Evolution (LTE): It is a development of the
GSM/UMTS standards, which is built as all-IP network
technology. LTE marked as Fourth Generation (4G) LTE is a
wireless communication standard of high speed data for mobile
devices and data terminals. It was developed under the Third
Generation Partnership Project (3GPP) formed by standards
developed from all regions of the world. LTE is a new wireless
data communication technology and mentioned in release 8 of
3GPP. The architecture of LTE is based on the GSM/EDGE and
UMTS/HSPA network technologies, with the increasing
capacity and speed.
LTE access network is a network of base stations called
enodeB and a core called Evolved Packet Core (EPC) [8], with
no centralized controller as described in Figure-2. The enodeB
take cares of the handover and mobility management thus
reducing time required for it. The core is purely IP based. The
enodeBs are interconnected through X2 interfaces and to the
core by S1 interface.
3
HSS
eNodeB MME
S1-MME
X2
LTE S1-U
UE
Serving PDN IP
Gateway Gateway Networks
(S-GW) (P-GW)
eNodeB
E-UTRAN Enhanced Packet Core (EPC)
Fig. 3. LTE architecture
Basically, LTE architecture which can be seen in Figure 3
has two parts i.e. E-UTRAN and EPC. The detailed explanation
of the architecture is as follows. The E-UTRAN part encompass
the air interface of LTE network consisting of User Equipment
(UE) and enodeB. The core communicates with the node via S1-
MME and S1-U interfaces collectively, called as S1 interface.
UE is the device which is used by an end user. EPC has elements
i.e. Home Subscriber Server (HSS), Serving Gate Way (SGW),
Packet Data Network Gate Way (PDN GW) and Mobility
Management Entity (MME).
MME manages facilities of the control plane and SGW
handles data (user) plane. The control plane manages
functionality of radio-specific which depends on the state of UE.
UE has two states, idle and connected. The user plane deal with
data packets. Therefore, it is also called as data plane. HSS is a
database that contains related information of user and
subscriber. HSS is used to authenticate user and authorize
access. SGW transports IP packets among external network and
UE. SGW routes the incoming and outgoing IP packets to serves
UE. It is a connect point between EPC and the radio side. PDN
GW interconnects core with external network. It is also involved
in IP address allocation. MME handles signaling for EUTRAN
access, related to mobility and security.
When a mobile device wants to get certain content over LTE
network with NDN architecture, it can send the Interest to the
closest radio base station/eNodeB. However, every node must
be equipped with NDN protocol stack. The details of actions are
outlined in the flowchart shown in Figure 4. First, NDN router
will receive Interest packet and perform lookup if request for
such content has come earlier from any other client. If it is served
from local cache, the request is forwarded to the next-hop NDN
router. Each NDN router maintains three data structures namely
Pending Interest Table (PIT), Forwarding Information Base
(FIB), and Content Store (CS). The rest of its connection will be
same as the concept of NDN protocol communication.
 Furthermore, we use number of producers as the evaluation
Start parameter to compare the network performance, which are
shown in Table 1.
Receive a Interest
message
TABLE 1. PARAMETER SETTINGS FOR DIFFERENT SCENARIOS

Mobile Number of Mobility Node

Exist in Content yes Send data through the Scenario
Store? arrival face Network Producers Model Distance
Random
no I Wi-Fi 4/8/6/12 Direction
10 m

yes Add the arrival face to Random

Exist in PIT? II LTE 4/8/6/12 Direction
10 m
the existing PIT entry

no
yes
Exist in FIB? Add a new PIT entry
no
Send the Interest through
the outgoing face
End
Fig. 4. Procedures for Internet Packet Processing
III. PERFORMANCE COMPARISON SCENARIO
The IoT environment can be described as Wireless Sensor
Network (WSN), where a lot of sensors are connected via
mobile network and collect the data provided by user. In our
simulation, the sensor devices are shown as producer, which
send the Data. The user as a consumer, send the Interest and
retrieve the Data. We assumed that the sensor devices have the
same characteristics, i.e. the ability to move (mobility) and the
power limitation (energy consumption and harvesting).
In our research we conduct experiments with two scenarios
that will be representation of our work in comparing the
performance between Wi-Fi and LTE environments. First is the
Wi-Fi-based scenarios, where the consumer communicates with
the producer via Wi-Fi through a Wi-Fi Access Point. The other
scenario is LTE-based scenarios, which used the LTE eNodeB
for the interconnection. The simulation scenario is shown in
Figure 5.
In the Scenario I, NDN will be combined with Wi-Fi mobile
network, with the number of producers varied from 4, 8, 6 and
12 producers. In the Scenario II, the mobile network that is used
over NDN is LTE. For LTE scenario, we used LENA, which is
the ns-3 module for LTE. Both scenarios used random direction
for the mobility model, and set the distance between each node
to 10m apart, and the other parameters are set to default.
The results are collected based on the simulation’s collection
time that varies by different parameters. The collection time is
defined as the time required in a simulation scenario, from the
Interest transmission by the consumer until the expected data is
retrieved.
IV. RESULT AND DISCUSSION
The simulation of our research and experiment about the
performance of LTE and Wi-Fi on IoT application has been
conducted. This simulation represented the scenarios of our idea
that applied Wi-Fi and LTE on IoT environment separately.
Figure 6 shows our simulation visualization result. The
simulation results are shown in Table 2 with the comparison of
collection time between IoT over LTE and Wi-Fi. We varied the
number of producers from 4, 8, 12, to 16, and used Random
Direction mobility model.

LTE eNodeB

Wi-Fi AP
CONSUMER

PRODUCER
Fig. 6. The simulation result of LTE scenario in IoT implementation with NDN
using ndnSIM

Fig. 5. Simulation scenario

Both scenarios are simulated using ns3 simulator and

ndnSIM module that will represent the environment for NDN.

4
 TABLE-2. THE COLLECTION TIME OF LTE AND WI-FI WITH RANDOM
DIRECTION MOBILITY MODEL FOR IOT OVER NDN
Number of Wi-Fi LTE
Producers (seconds) (seconds)
4 7 7 Fi and LTE scenarios are nearly had the same value. It happened
8 7 7 because we use small scale network scenario. The result between
12 7 7
16 7 7
As seen in Table 2, the collection time between IoT
application over Wi-Fi and LTE are the same i.e. 7 seconds. This
result is also depicted in Figure 7 that the second line on every
producer is LTE and the first line is Wi-Fi. These values are
retrieved from the rate trace of each scenario for every node and
its interest and data transactions. The results are retrieved from
the interest time until the interest is not satisfied again by the
producers. These results had no effect when we vary the number
of producers.
There is another experiment that conducted to verify the LTE
ability and the Wi-Fi incapability about coverage. In this
experiment, the distance between each node had been set to 300
m. With that distance value, the Wi-Fi scenario couldn’t get the
result because it couldn’t connect to the other nodes in the
scenario. Even it setup in adhoc connection, the distance
prohibited a node to reach the other and build a connection.
In our hypothesis, the collection time will be greater if the
number of producers increased. The result of LTE scenario can
be faster than Wi-Fi because of its capabilities on highspeed
transmission and coverage if the distance between nodes are
further apart, outside of average area of Wi-Fi coverage. For the
best scenario, LTE scenario will have the advantages for IoT
implementation, especially for broad coverage area that Wi-Fi
could not supported. Based on the analysis of the simulation, this
system experienced an anomaly which are might be caused by
our simulation scenarios are too small to represent the real
environment and condition.
Wi-Fi LTE
8 Comput. Appl., pp. 232–250, 2016.
7 [11]
6 ICCW 2015, p. 1845–1851, London, 2015.
COLLETION TIME
over NDN architecture can be used for the implementation of
IoT with usage in broad area such forest etc. It was also make
faster the transmission for the producers to fulfil the consumer
interests. In our case, the simulation result shows that both Wi-
Wi-Fi and LTE will be differed significantly if it used large scale
network scenario, especially in long distance as our additional
experiment. For the future work, more complex network
topology should be conducted to get better understanding about
the performance comparison between Wi-Fi and LTE over
NDN.
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NUMBER OF PRODUCERS

Fig. 7. Comparison of Wi-Fi and LTE with Random Direction mobility model

V. CONCLUSION AND FUTURE WORK

From the literature study, compare to Wi-Fi, LTE has more
capabilities in large coverage area. LTE also has faster speed of
transmission while depends on the chip modem of the devices
that specify the maximum bandwidth of the transmission. LTE,