Abstract
Driven by the primary requirement of emerging 5G mobile services, the demand for concurrent multipath transfer (CMT) is still prominent. Yet, multipath transport protocols are not widely adopted and CMT schemes based on Transport Control Protocol (TCP) will still be in dominant position in 5G. However, the performance of TCP flow transferred over multiple heterogeneous paths is prone to the link quality asymmetry, the extent of which was revealed to be significant by our field investigation. In this paper, we present a performance analysis model for TCP over multiple heterogeneous paths in 5G scenarios, where both bandwidth and delay asymmetry are taken into consideration. The evaluation using large-scale simulation and field experiment shows that the proposed model can achieve high accuracy in practical environments. Some interesting inferences can be drawn from the proposed model, such as the dominant factors that affect the performance of TCP over heterogeneous networks, and the criteria of determining the appropriate number of links to be used under different circumstances of path heterogeneity. Thus, the proposed model can provide a guidance to the design of TCP-based CMT solutions for 5G mobile services.
Highlights
For emerging and promising 5G mobile services, despite their diverse application scenarios, it is widely agreed that they share a common primary requirement: either high data rate or high reliability
We believe that the existing Concurrent Multipath Transfer (CMT) [1] technology could contribute to the fulfillment of needs of 5G mobile services
The severe extent of link quality asymmetry in real world situations is revealed based on field measurement, and a performance analysis model for Transport Control Protocol (TCP) over multiple heterogeneous paths for 5G services is derived regarding average throughput
Summary
For emerging and promising 5G mobile services, despite their diverse application scenarios, it is widely agreed that they share a common primary requirement: either high data rate or high reliability. To meet such requirement, evolving wireless techniques and novel network infrastructures for 5G are no doubt necessary. CMT can improve communication throughput, and provide communication reliability. CMT in 5G scenarios will pool multiple heterogeneous wireless resources by employing a variety of Radio Access Technologies (RATs) concurrently. Thanks to diversity gain of heterogeneous RATs, the communication reliability can be improved [3]. More and more mobile devices have been equipped with multiple wireless interfaces [4]
Sign-in/Register to view highlights & summary 
Published Version (
Free)
Talk to us
Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have
Schedule a call