Low Delay Random Linear Coding and Scheduling Over Multiple Interfaces

Abstract: Multipath transport protocols like MPTCP transfer data across multiple routes in parallel and deliver it in order at the receiver. When the delay on one or more of the paths is variable, as is commonly the case, out of order arrivals are frequent and head of line blocking leads to high latency. This is exacerbated when packet loss, which is also common with wireless links, is tackled using ARQ. This paper introduces Stochastic Earliest Delivery Path First (S-EDPF), a resilient low delay packet scheduler for multipath transport protocols. S-EDPF takes explicit account of the stochastic nature of paths and uses this to minimise in-order delivery delay. S-EDPF also takes account of FEC, jointly scheduling transmission of information and coded packets and in this way allows lossy links to reduce delay and improve resiliency, rather than degrading performance as usually occurs with existing multipath systems. We implement S-EDPF as a multi-platform application that does not require administration privileges nor modifications to the operating system and has negligible impact on energy consumption. We present a thorough experimental evaluation in both controlled environments and into the wild, revealing dramatic gains in delay performance compared to existing approaches.