Evaluating user-centric multihomed flow management for mobile devices in simulated heterogeneous networks

We implemented approaches to solve the multihomed flow management problem using the OPNET simulator. We formulate a quality-aware decision method as a binary integer problem and use it (with the CPLEX solver) to drive the network selection and flow distribution in the simulated scenarios. We compare the behaviour of application flows with our approach and the most commonly implemented nowadays. This allows us to more accurately evaluate these approaches' potential when applied to real network scenarios, where adaptation loops in protocols and algorithms in the network stack may alter the expected performance. We show that, even uncalibrated, the quality-aware multihomed flow management allows to make better trade-offs between different user criteria and identify improvement directions.