SDN-Based Congestion Control and Bandwidth Allocation Scheme in 5G Networks

Abstract

5G cellular networks are already more than six times faster than 4G networks, and their packet loss rate, especially in the Internet of Vehicles (IoV), can reach 0.5% in many cases, such as when there is high-speed movement or obstacles nearby. In such high bandwidth and high packet loss network environments, traditional congestion control algorithms, such as CUBIC and bottleneck bandwidth and round-trip propagation time (BBR), have been unable to balance flow fairness and high performance, and their flow rate often takes a long time to converge. We propose a congestion control algorithm based on bottleneck routing feedback using an in-network control mode called bottleneck routing feedback (BRF). We use SDN technology (OpenFlow protocol) to collect network bandwidth information, and BRF controls the data transmission rate of the sender. By adding the bandwidth information of the bottleneck in the option field in the ACK packet, considering the flow fairness and the flow convergence rate, a bandwidth allocation scheme compatible with multiple congestion control algorithms is proposed to ensure the fairness of all flows and make them converge faster. The performance of BRF is evaluated via Mininet. The experimental results show that BRF provides higher bandwidth utilization, faster convergence rate, and fairer bandwidth allocation than existing congestion control algorithms in 5G cellular networks.