Abstract
The multipath transmission control protocol (MPTCP) is considered a promising wireless multihoming solution, and the 3rd generation partnership project (3GPP) includes it as a standard feature in the fifth-generation (5G) networks. Currently, ns-3 (Network Simulator-3) is widely used to evaluate the performance of wireless networks and protocols, including the emerging MPTCP protocol. This paper investigates the fidelity of the Linux kernel implementation of MPTCP in the ns-3 direct code execution module. The fidelity of MPTCP simulation is tested by comparing its performance with a real Linux stack implementation of MPTCP using a hardware testbed for two different setups. One setup emulates the existence of a bottleneck link between the sending and receiving networks, whereas the other setup does not have such a bottleneck. The fidelity of ns-3’s simulation is tested for four congestion control algorithms, namely Cubic, linked-increases algorithm (LIA), opportunistic LIA (OLIA) and wVegas for relatively short and long data flows. It is found that the uplink MPTCP throughput performance exhibited by the ns-3 simulator matches the hardware testbed results only if the flows are long-lived and share no common bottleneck link. Likewise, the MPTCP throughput achieved during a downlink scenario using the ns-3 simulator and the hardware testbed are close to each other across all algorithms except wVegas regardless of the flow size if there is no bottleneck link. Moreover, it is observed that the impact of LTE handover on MPTCP throughput is less significant in the simulator than the real hardware testbed, and it is setup-dependent.
Highlights
There has been tremendous growth in wireless data traffic and the number of wirelessly connected devices in recent years
Our study focuses on the following performance aspects of the Direct Code Execution (DCE) implementation of the multipath transmission control protocol (MPTCP) protocol in the ns-3 simulator
The paper studies the fidelity of ns-3 simulations for dual-homed wireless nodes using
Summary
There has been tremendous growth in wireless data traffic and the number of wirelessly connected devices in recent years. The main goals of 5G networks, such as high data rates and low latency, can be supported by millimeter wave (mmWave) technology. MmWave communication signals lack strong diffraction and are more prone to blockages by the physical objects in the environment, which may result in the disruption of communication links [1,2]. Even the human body is considered a strong blocker of the mmWave communication system. The authors of [4] showed that the human body can bring down the mmWave signal strength by around 20 dB and block the link for approximately 500 ms. The availability of multiple network connections provides a failover solution to compensate for a blockage-affected mmWave link by using another communication link. The concept of wireless multihoming is gaining higher traction, driven by Sensors 2020, 20, 7289; doi:10.3390/s20247289 www.mdpi.com/journal/sensors
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