Mobility Context Awareness in Heterogeneous Networks to Enhance Multipath Communications

Mobile communication has been evolving through various generations and is currently on the verge of its fifth generation (5G). The ubiquitous usage of this technology is reflected by its ever increasing number of subscribers and data traffic demand. The contemporary cellular networks are composed of different Radio Access Technologies (RAT) (e.g, LTE, HSPA, (soon) 5G) with different cell sizes, transmission frequencies etc., co- existing with each other forming heterogeneous networks (HetNets). Multipath-TCP (MPTCP) enables simultaneous use of multiple network interfaces (through multiple RATs) available at the UE to maximize resource usage. The application however is oblivious to the presence of multiple TCP connections (or subflows) and perceives it as a regular TCP interface. Though promising in HetNets, MPTCP faces several challenges among which handling of user handover (HO) is a key issue. This paper focuses on the effects of handovers and coverage loss on the performance of MPTCP and proposes Mobility Context Awareness (MCA) as a potential solution. The prediction of HOs in secondary RAT will be beneficial to take appropriate actions (e.g., Coordinated Multipoint (CoMP) transmission) in order to sustain scheduled subflows on such RATs. The simulation results show key improvements in goodput, assimilation time of ordered packets during handovers, which become crucial for delay sensitive applications.