Enhanced Multipath TCP to Improve the Mobile Device Network Resiliency

Abstract

Mobile devices consume a significant amount of internet traffic, and they can utilize multiple interfaces like Wi-Fi and cellular networks to share traffic between networks, known as a multi-homed host. This approach enhances the resilience of the internet connection by allowing traffic to flow through multiple paths. The Multipath Transmission Control Protocol (MPTCP) supports this type of connection, but a fairness issue emerges when a multi-path host shares a bottleneck link with regular single-path hosts. To deal with this issue, this paper proposes an enhanced MPTCP (eMPTCP) that uses a throughput adjustment to estimate bandwidth based on TCP Westwood+ congestion control. By decreasing each subflow traffic on the multi-path, the proposed eMPTCP achieves fairness in shared links. The simulation conducted using network simulator 2 (ns2) represents the mobile conditions of mobile data air interface, and the results demonstrate that eMPTCP outperforms standard congestion control in achieving connection resilience.