tMPH: A Client-only Multisource Multipath HTTP Solution for Android Applications

Prevalent smartphones equipped with multiple wireless network interfaces have natural advantages for multipath transport in the internet. This paper proposes an application-transparent multisource and multipath solution for HTTP (tMPH) at the user side. tMPH strategically splits the HTTP traffic into byte range requests, transfers them over multipath, and dynamically balances the workload across all paths. Without any modifications on infrastructures and operation systems, tMPH can be deployed at client-side and leverage virtual private network (VPN) service of Android platform to transparently process traffics for different HTTP applications. Moreover, coupled with content delivery network (CDN), tMPH can provide additional path diversity in associated with both WiFi and cellular links. Performance of the proposed tMPH is carefully evaluated under a variety of settings, and the results indicate its effectiveness with superior transport speed to the state of the art.