Handling 5G Blockage Issue through a MPTCP Proxy Approach

Cellular communication has become an integral part of human life, and 5G, as a new mobile communication technology, is expanding to provide enhanced connectivity for users. Nevertheless, due to flaws such as blockage, it cannot accomplish its goals easily. Meanwhile, with the emergence of MPTCP, the feasibility of using multiple networks is now available for users. MPTCP can indeed help the 5G network by combining it with another network in such a way that the alternative one can be an assistance for the 5G network to overcome existing issues such as blockage; however, most servers do not support this protocol, and thus, its deployment by a user can be pointless. In this paper, by using a proxy, we provide multipathing to the client side to improve the user experience. The paper mainly focuses on answering the question of whether or not it is possible to keep the performance of the 5G network stable by exploiting a secondary network. Furthermore, it elaborates on which scenarios can most benefit from the MPTCP proxy deployment, and which combination of congestion control and schedulers can fulfill it the most and enhance mobile networks’ performance.