Multipath Bandwidth Scavenging in the Internet of Things

Abstract

To meet the infrastructure coverage and capacity needed by future IoT applications, service providers may engage in mutually-beneficial modes of collaboration such as cooperative packet forwarding and gatewaying through fixed backhauls and Internet uplinks. In an effort to enable these modes of resource pooling while minimizing negative impact on collaborating providers, we developed a transport-layer approach that would enable IoT nodes to opportunistically scavenge for idle bandwidth across multiple paths. Our approach combines multipath techniques with less-than-best effort (LBE) congestion control methods. Initial tests using the TCP-LP and LEDBAT LBE algorithms on scavenging secondary flows show that this desired functionality can be achieved. To ensure however that IoT nodes are guaranteed at least one flow that fairly competes for fair share of network capacity, one flow called the primary flow uses standard TCP congestion control.