Practical Multi-Interface Network Access for Mobile Devices

mobile;multi-interface;networking;bandwidth aggregation;Electrical and Computer Engineering

Schmidtke, Jakub Krzysztof

University of Waterloo

关键词: mobile;    multi-interface;    networking;    bandwidth aggregation;    Electrical and Computer Engineering;   

Others  :  https://uwspace.uwaterloo.ca/bitstream/10012/7013/1/Schmidtke_Jakub.pdf

瑞士|英语

来源: UWSPACE Waterloo Institutional Repository

【 摘 要 】

Despite the growing number of mobile devices equipped with multiplenetworking interfaces, they are not using multiple available networks inparallel.The simple network selection techniques only allow for singlenetwork to be used at a time and switching between different networksinterrupts all existing connections.This work presents system thatimproves network connectivity in presence of multiple network adapters, notonly through better network handovers, smarter network selection and failuredetection, but also through increased bandwidth offered to the device overaggregated channels.The biggest challenge such a system has to face is the heterogeneity ofnetworks in mobile environment.Different wireless technologies, and evendifferent networks of the same type offer inconsistent link parameters likeavailable bandwidth, latency or packet loss.The wireless nature of thesenetworks also means, that most of the parameters fluctuate in unpredictableway.Given the intended practicality of designed system, all thatcomplexity has to be hidden from both client-side applications and from theremote servers.These factors combined make the task of designing andimplementing an efficient solution difficult.The system incorporates client-side software, as well as network proxy thatassists in splitting data traffic, tunnelling it over a number of availablenetwork interfaces, and reassembling it on the remote side.Theseoperations are transparent to both applications running on the client, aswell as any network servers those applications communicate with.Thisproperty allows the system to meet one of the most important requirements,which is the practicality of the solution, and being able to deploy it inreal life scenarios, using network protocols available today and on existingdevices.This work also studies the most critical cost associated withincreased data processing and parallel interface usage - the increase inenergy usage, which needs to remain within reasonable values for this kindof solution being usable on mobile devices with limited battery life.The properties of designed and deployed system are evaluated using multipleexperiments in different scenarios.Collected results confirm that ourapproach can provide applications with increased bandwidth when multiplenetworks are available.We also discover that even though per-second energyusage increases when multiple interfaces are used in parallel, the use ofmulti-interface connectivity can actually reduce the total energy costassociated with performing specific tasks - effectively saving energy.