A comparison of mechanisms for improving TCP performance overwireless links
Balakrishnan, H.; Padmanabhan, V.N.; Seshan, S.; Katz, R.H.
Networking, IEEE/ACM Transactions on
Volume 5, Issue 6, Dec 1997 Page(s):756 - 769
Digital Object Identifier 10.1109/90.650137
Summary:Reliable transport protocols such as TCP are tuned to perform well
in traditional networks where packet losses occur mostly because of
congestion. However, networks with wireless and other lossy links also
suffer from significant losses due to bit errors and handoffs. TCP
responds to all losses by invoking congestion control and avoidance
algorithms, resulting in degraded end-to end performance in wireless and
lossy systems. We compare several schemes designed to improve the
performance of TCP in such networks. We classify these schemes into
three broad categories: end-to-end protocols, where loss recovery is
performed by the sender; link-layer protocols that provide local
reliability; and split-connection protocols that break the end-to-end
connection into two parts at the base station. We present the results of
several experiments performed in both LAN and WAN environments, using
throughput and goodput as the metrics for comparison. Our results show
that a reliable link-layer protocol that is TCP-aware provides very good
performance. Furthermore, it is possible to achieve good performance
without splitting the end-to-end connection at the base station. We also
demonstrate that selective acknowledgments and explicit loss
notifications result in significant performance improvements
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