The HOP Protocol: Reliable Latency-Bounded End-to-End Multipath Communication

Next-generation wireless networks are expected to enable new applications with strict latency constraints. However, existing transport layer protocols are unable to meet the stringent Quality of Service (QoS) requirements on throughput and maximum latency: excessive queuing due to capacity-oriented congestion control inflates end-to-end latency well beyond interactivity deadlines. In this work, we propose a novel framework that evolves best-effort communications into reliability- and latency-aware communications for QoS-sensitive applications. The new protocol, named High-reliability latency-bounded Overlay Protocol (HOP), provides a novel combination of packet-level Forward Error Correction (FEC) and multipath scheduling to compensate for capacity drops and meet pre-defined QoS requirements. More specifically, the sender splits the data and the associated redundancy between the paths by using a stochastic forecast of their future capacity and decides the amount of redundancy necessary to meet the application’s requirements without clogging the connections. We compare HOP’s performance with state-of-the-art multipath protocols in ns-3 simulations using both synthetic and live network traces, and confirm that our scheme can reliably deliver high-throughput data, reducing the number of late blocks by 2 to 5 times with respect to optimized Multipath TCP (MPTCP).