Adaptive load balancing algorithm for multiple homing mobile nodes

In places where mobile users can access multiple wireless networks simultaneously, a multipath scheduling algorithm can benefit the performance of wireless networks and improve the experience of mobile users. However, existing literature shows that it may not be the case, especially for TCP flows. According to early investigations, there are mainly two reasons that result in bad performance of TCP flows in wireless networks. One is the occurrence of out-of-order packets due to different delays in multiple paths. The other is the packet loss which is resulted from the limited bandwidth of wireless networks. To better exploit multipath scheduling for TCP flows, this paper presents a new scheduling algorithm named Adaptive Load Balancing Algorithm (ALBAM) to split traffic across multiple wireless links within the ISP infrastructure. Targeting at solving the two adverse impacts on TCP flows, ALBAM develops two techniques. Firstly, ALBAM takes advantage of the bursty nature of TCP flows and performs scheduling at the flowlet granularity where the packet interval is large enough to compensate for the different path delays. Secondly, ALBAM develops a Packet Number Estimation Algorithm (PNEA) to predict the buffer usage in each path. With PNEA, ALBAM can prevent buffer overflow and schedule the TCP flow to a less congested path before it suffers packet loss. Simulations show that ALBAM can provide better performance to TCP connections than its other counterparts.