Application Level Performance Measurements of Multi-Connectivity Options in Cellular Networks for Vehicular Scenarios

Intelligent Transportation Systems (ITS) and vehicle passengers request for high-speed and reliable data access from vehicle to infrastructure networks. For example, passengers like to consume multimedia services and new use cases arise from ITS and connected vehicular services that require high-speed and reliable connectivity solutions. To achieve these requirements multi-connectivity is a viable solution to increase throughput and reliability. Such options exist on various layers. On the network access layer multiple antennas are deployed for transmitting and receiving data in parallel data streams; on the transport layer different network access opportunities are utilized by multi-path protocols such as multi-path TCP. At the present study, we evaluate performance metrics of these options in a real-world vehicular scenario. We quantify throughput, delay, and reliability improvements of using multiple antennas and multi-path TCP and also indicate issues of multi-path TCP. Further, we demonstrate performance improvements by the change of the congestion control protocol.