Session-Persistent Traffic Scheduler for Multipath Backhaul Optimizations in 5G Networks and Beyond: An Experimental Evaluation

The single-link backhaul architecture in post-5G networks presents critical reliability challenges, particularly in private deployments requiring carrier-grade five-nines availability specifications. While upgrading infrastructure could address these limitations, the associated capital expenditures are prohibitively expensive. We therefore developed a cost-effective solution to enhance the reliability when backhauling mobile traffic over multiple third-party best-effort networks. We propose a session-persistent scheduler, implemented within the vtun-mpx open source multipath tunnneling solution. It maintains session traffic on consistent paths to minimize packet reordering. Our analysis reveals superior performance compared to traditional round-robin dispatchers and reinforcement learning-based alternatives, particularly in reducing packet loss.