State Key Laboratory of Networking and Switching Technology, Beijing University of Posts and Telecommunications, Beijing, China, 100876

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Abstract—2G data service is still an important component in mobile communication system. GPRS network bears a wide variety of data business, especially IM communication business which has a large number of users. QQ, Weixin, Fetion are beyond any doubt the most popular IM applications in the current Mobile Internet applications spectrum. Their wide use led to signaling storm, which drawn the attention of telecom operators and the research community, both interested in knowing IM applications' internal mechanisms, charactering traffic and understanding the applications' network behavior. In this paper, we dissect the network behavior and traffic consumption of QQ, Weixin and Fetion for Android in GPRS. We use a traffic sniffer to get data packets of each application in different scenarios. Furthermore, leveraging on the use of the network protocol analyzer-Wireshark and our knowledge of network communication, we study each application’s behavior characteristics. Understanding the characteristics of these applications makes for a better business promotion, a more optimal network resource allocation, a positive guiding significance for business income and resources investment income.

Index Terms—mobile internet, instant messaging, network behavior analysis, traffic model

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Cite: Kai Shuang, Li Ni, "Network Behavior Analysis and Resource Consumption Evaluation for Android IM Applications in GPRS," Journal of Software vol. 9, no. 6, pp. 1463-1470, 2014.