A study on primary path switching strategy of SCTP

As a variety of communication devices emerging, we can easily install two or more communication interfaces on a PC or a PDA and make a multi-home environment. To utilize this multi-home environment effectively, SCTP (stream control transmission protocol) has been proposed and standardized. Extending functions of the original SCTP, a strategy which can adapt SCTP to real-time communications has been proposed. However, the typical existing strategy has not enough considered the switching conditions from the viewpoint of transmission delay, so there is room to improve them. In this paper, we clarify the drawbacks of the existing strategy and their influences on the performance. Then, we propose a new strategy of path switching to reduce the delay and to increase the amount of data successfully delivered. The effect of the proposed strategy is discussed and confirmed through experimental evaluations.