Policy driven multi-band spectrum aggregation for ultra-broadband wireless networks

Sustaining the impressive mobile Internet revolution that has transformed our lives requires addressing the key challenge of designing future ultra-broadband wireless networks that can keep up with the data traffic growth. One of the key techniques to increase per-user as well as system capacity is to increase the amount of spectrum used in the network. However, given cost-effective radios that can radiate in 100s MHz of spectrum are still not practical, alternate solutions that concurrently exploit multiple radios and multi-band support in current devices and networks need to be explored. The carrier aggregation technology in LTE-Advanced networks represents a step in this direction. However, such an intra-network, single standard baseband specific approach does not scale well as it does not effectively exploit multi-network. multi-band and multi-operator connectivity and therefore, to rectify these shortcomings we envision an aggregation solution at transport or network-layer. We propose an end-to-end architecture that uses Multi-path TCP (MPTCP) as the key building block and supports concept of multi-path policies that exposes to end-users and networks unprecedented control on use of network resources on various spectrum bands and paths. We identify that uncontrolled widespread MPTCP use can lead to unfair resource allocation and reduced spectral efficiency. We solve this problem using a centralized network-resident service for managing multi-path usage throughout an administrative domain such as an operator network, or enterprise. This service makes central decisions based on network-wide information and operator policies. We describe our end-to-end prototype and report on experiments that demonstrate optimized aggregate network capacity in a variety of interesting scenarios.