Design, implementation and evaluation of congestion control for multipath TCP

TLDR

Multipath TCP splits a single data stream across multiple paths, enhancing reliability and enabling more efficient use of network resources. The authors design, implement, and evaluate a multipath congestion control algorithm for multihomed servers, data centers, and mobile clients. They implement the algorithm as a drop‑in replacement for TCP in Linux and assess its performance on multihomed servers, data centers, and mobile clients. The results show that their algorithm improves throughput and fairness relative to single‑path TCP, avoids harmful “obvious” solutions, and is safe to deploy.

Abstract

Multipath TCP, as proposed by the IETF working group mptcp, allows a single data stream to be split across multiple paths. This has obvious benefits for reliability, and it can also lead to more efficient use of networked resources. We describe the design of a multipath congestion control algorithm, we implement it in Linux, and we evaluate it for multihomed servers, data centers and mobile clients. We show that some 'obvious' solutions for multipath congestion control can be harmful, but that our algorithm improves throughput and fairness compared to single-path TCP. Our algorithmis a drop-in replacement for TCP, and we believe it is safe to deploy.