SOCKx — An application layer network switching framework using SOCKSv5 protocol extensions

In this paper, we introduce and evaluate the SOCKx framework, which extends the widely used SOCKSv5 protocol to enable application-layer switching between multiple networks. Through application-layer selection of available underlying networks, a client´s proxy server can dynamically adjust the network to be used for transmissions, e.g., to optimize power consumption, when communicating with a remote proxy server. From a general performance evaluation for cellular-controlled converged devices, we find that switching between different networks does not always present a viable option for power savings and depends on (i) the computational overhead of the server implementation, (ii) the type of network traffic under consideration and (iii) the ability of switching off unused network interfaces.