A Method of Introducing Multipath TCP to Mobile Core Networks and Its Evaluations

摘要

The number of mobile terminals that have both a cellular interface and a Wi-Fi interface has been growing in the recent years. Meanwhile, Multipath TCP (MPTCP) that enables the simultaneous use of multiple paths with multiple TCP flows while showing just one regular TCP connection with the application has been standardized by the IETF and has drawn more attention recently. One feature of MPTCP is that it can be realized only by operating system layers supporting multipath communication without any modifications of the application. However, it might be difficult to install MPTCP in all server operating systems. In this paper, we propose a method for applying a proxy that forwards TCP communication from a server to MPTCP communication on a mobile core network, and show the results of evaluation with the existing equipment.