Improving TCP performance over Mobile Ad Hoc Networks using an adaptive backoff response approach

Mobile ad hoc network (MANET) suffers from temporary link failures and route changes. Moreover, TCP performs poorly when most packet losses are due to congestion. Most of research performed for improving TCP performance over MANET requires feedback from lower layers. Several attempts have been proposed for a layered TCP improvement. Yet, their percentage enhancements are not satisfactory. In this paper, we explore a new approach to improve TCP performance using a TCP layered approach. The proposed methodology depends on beginning transmission as soon as a failed route is reestablished. It utilizes an adaptive back-off response strategy through which congestion window and slow start threshold values are decreased when an acknowledgement is received. The proposed technique does not require feedback from the network layer. Simulation results showed that this approach had achieved an average performance improvement of 17%.