MultiPath TCP, a major extension to TCP, allows the simultaneous use of a smartphone's 3G and WiFi interface to increase throughput and better resilience. We implement MultiPath TCP in the Linux Kernel, publicly available at http://mptcp.info.ucl.ac.be
TCP, the most used Transport Protocol on the Internet, does not allow the simultaneous usage of multiple Interfaces. Smartphones with 3G and WiFi interfaces would benefit from a simultaneous use of both interfaces. MultiPath TCP is a major extension to TCP, allowing the use of multiple Interfaces for a single data-stream, without the need to modify the applications. This allows an increased throughput and better resilience to failures. The IP Networking Lab (http://inl.info.ucl.ac.be) of the Université Catholique de Louvain is implementing MultiPath TCP in the Linux Kernel. The publicly available source-code (http://mptcp.info.ucl.ac.be) modifies/adds about 10000 lines to the Linux Kernel's TCP-stack. The implementation has shown very good performance. For example, a throughput of up to 15 Gbps across two 10 Gig interfaces, whereas regular TCP can only use a single interface and thus 10 Gbps. We are now considering inclusion in the mainline kernel and would like to encourage people to test our implementation and/or submit patches to help improving it.
Speakers: Christoph Paasch