TCP in mixed Internet and geo-satellite environments: experiences and results

Experiments in real satellite testbeds are relatively rare in practice. In this paper, we are going to share our experience on using one, and comment on selected sets of results that we've conducted in such mixed Internet and GEO-Satellite environment. The selected material includes: characterization of an induced error-prone satellite channel; results from an optimized non-congestion losses aware TCP (TCP Westwood) and its superior performance compared to TCP NewReno on such error prone scenario. Other results of how implementation details can adversely affect the expected performance, like the congestion window inflation issue and, finally, the state-of-the-art performance enhancement proxies (PEPs) through the satellite. Our main goal is not only to present such novel results but also describe the complex testbed deployment, methodology and the lessons that we learned by performing these experiments.