An analytic throughput model for TCP Reno over wireless networks

Many wireless network applications are built on TCP, and will continue to be in the foreseeable future. It is important to study TCP performance in wireless networks scenario with high loss rate. In this paper, we develop a simple analytic characterization of the steady state throughput of a bulk transfer TCP Reno flow over wireless networks, as a function of loss rate and round trip time. Our model incorporates many important aspects, such as slow start, congestion avoidance, fast retransmit, fast recovery and timeout mechanism. Our simulation results demonstrate that our model is able to accurately predict TCP throughput over wireless networks and is accurate over a wide range of loss rate.