Enabling P4-based Multipath Communication in Wireless Networks

Network softwarization, such as Software-Defined Networking (SDN), is a potential technology to manage networking resources and routing paths dynamically in 5G and beyond. However, SDN, which provides the control plane programmability, requires a de-factor protocol (i.e., OpenFlow) on network devices. In an SDN network, the load of network control traffic is likely concentrated on a network controller. Moreover, most of SDN advantages are not easily extensible in wireless networks. Programming Protocol-independent Packet Processors (P4), which enables the data plane programmability, potentially solves SDN issues. P4 allows programming new packet forwarding methods, which don't necessarily rely on the predefined protocols. In this paper, we show the feasibility of P4 in realizing a multipath communication mechanism in wireless networks. We first introduce and implement a P4-based multipath transmission mechanism of UDP traffic. We then evaluate the mechanism on an emulated wireless network (i.e., using mininetwifi) in comparison to the single path. The results show that the P4-based mechanism can effectively achieve the throughput aggregation with a slightly bigger latency variation.