TCP performance over GPRS

GPRS is the new packet-oriented data service for GSM. Soon it will be possible to take advantage of the features provided by GPRS for Internet access like fast connection set-up, volume-based charging and staying on-line for long periods. For non-real-time Internet applications TCP is the applied transport protocol. Often it was suspected that GPRS introduces severe performance degradations for TCP traffic since both apply their own ARQ mechanism. It is well known that layered protocol interactions can have very negative influences. This paper examines with simulations the performance of TCP over GPRS. The behaviour of the protocols is analysed under various conditions. It is shown that both TCP and GPRS are well harmonised.