Performance of TCP over different routing protocols in mobile ad-hoc networks

TCP/IP is the standard networking protocol on the Internet and is also the most widely used. Due to these reasons, its use over mobile ad-hoc networks is a certainty. Ad-hoc networks are prone to link failures due to mobility. TCP is unable to distinguish between losses due to route failures and losses due to congestion. As a result, the throughput degrades significantly when nodes move. It is therefore essential to study how TCP performs over ad-hoc networks. We have used simulations in the cmu extension to ns to analyse the performance of TCP Tahoe over a set of routing protocols including the signal stability adaptive routing protocol which we have implemented in ns-2. We identify characteristics in each of these routing protocols that determine the behaviour of TCP over them.