A new application-level link aggregation and its implementation on Android terminals

Link aggregation bundles multiple physical links on a single virtual link, enabling very high-speed and large-capacity data communications. It also enables redundant communications. Several link aggregation methods have been proposed. These methods utilize transport/or lower layer link aggregation. In this paper, a new application-level link aggregation is proposed and implemented on Android operating system (OS), which is one of the popular OSs for mobile devices such as smartphones and tablet PCs. The proposed application-level link aggregation method is verified with use of an implemented terminal. Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. (In this paper, a new application level link aggregation is proposed and implemented on Android OS, which is one of the popular OSs for mobile devices such as smartphones and tablet PCs. The proposed application level link aggregation method is verified with use of an implemented terminal. It is verified that the link aggregation control works as designed, that is, the total throughput of the link aggregation approximately equals to the sum of throughputs of two nonaggregated links. The switching from/to link aggregation mode and to/from single link mode was performed properly depending on the throughputs of two links. It was also confirmed that the proposed link aggregation method was applied to wireless-wireless link aggregation and wireless-wired link aggregation.)