Multi-source TCP (MSTCP): A transport protocol for distributed content delivery

Fetching different parts of the same content (file) simultaneously through multiple network paths has been found to improve content delivery. There are several application layer programs that use this technique to improve the perceived performance at the end users. However, these applications use multiple sockets (multiple connections) at the transport layer, which has several disadvantages. Also, the existing transport layer protocols that allow content delivery over multiple network paths over a single transport layer connection (e.g., MPTCP) are limited to content delivery from a single source. With the availability of content across distributed content servers, there is a need for a transport layer protocol that provides the ability to deliver content from these distributed sources over a single transport layer connection. In this paper, we design and implement a multi-source transport control protocol (MSTCP) that can be used to deliver content from a distributed source to a client application over a single transport layer connection. A prototype implementation and preliminary performance measures showing the effectiveness of MSTCP are also presented.