On: Apple iOS 7 surprises as first with new multipath TCP connections

[rurounijones]

What if you do not want to use your cellular connection when wifi is enabled. Will you have to start disabling cellular?

[tedunangst → rurounijones]

That is in theory exactly what this allows you to do. e.g., if you're watching some streaming video while outside, then come home to wifi, the connection will switch to wifi.

[rurounijones → tedunangst]

It gives you the potential to switch but it isn't explained in the article how iOS7 uses this potential.

Does it automatically kill the cellular data connection and only use the Wifi if wifi is available? Or does it keep both open and use them both?

[stingraycharles → rurounijones]

As far as I understand, it uses the least congested path available. In theory, this would mean it would prefer the wifi connection.

[dragonwriter → stingraycharles]

> As far as I understand, it uses the least congested path available.

IOW, it uses at least some cellular data even when connected to WiFi, because otherwise it wouldn't be able to determine which path is the least congested.

[rurounijones → stingraycharles]

Ah, that is my misunderstanding. I thought it was some sort of "split traffic between each path".

But I guess for it to work it would still need to check the cellular connection every now and then. I wonder how much traffic that would generate? (hopefully a negligable amount.)