Metrics for access network selection.

Today, most mobile devices can connect to the Internet via multiple access networks. To make an informed choice of which network to use, a host requires accurate and up to date performance metrics. However, so far such network characteristics are typically not readily available and can be highly volatile. We explore what performance metrics are available on a host by monitoring and aggregating them within our Socket Intents prototype. These metrics then feed into our access network selection policies to improve page load time in a testbed emulating various network characteristics. We find that minimum and median Smoothed Round Trip Time and maximum observed download rate are useful metrics in the sense that they enable us to speed up web page load times by up to 65% compared to using a single interface.