Towards Dynamic MPTCP Path Control Using SDN

MPTCP (MultiPath TCP) boosts application network performance by aggregating bandwidth over multiple paths. However, it may cause poor performance due to the large number of out-of-order packets especially when the paths have different bandwidths and delays. To resolve this issue, we propose to dynamically add or remove MPTCP paths with the leverage of software-defined networking (SDN). The key idea is to track the available capacity of connected paths and pick the most appropriate paths depending on varying network conditions. To show the feasibility of our approach, we create an SDN platform using Mininet over Wi-Fi networks. Our analysis shows that a faster download and improved quality of experience (QoE) in adaptive rate video streaming is possible with our dynamic MPTCP path control mechanism using SDN.