Comparative analysis of different TCP variants in a wireless environment

TCP is being used as a highly reliable end-to-end protocol for transporting applications. TCP was originally designed for wired links where the error rate is really low and actually assumed that packet losses are due to congestion in the network. But TCP performance in wireless networks suffers from significant throughput degradation and delays. TCP uses congestion control and avoidance algorithms which degrades end-to-end performance in wireless systems. In this paper we have analyzed the performance of TCP variants, which were designed to improve performance in wireless networks. An ns-2 based simulation analysis of TCP Tahoe, TCP Reno, TCP New Reno, TCP Sack, TCP Vegas and TCP New Jersey is done. The effect of Random Packet Loss Rate and mobility on the TCP variants was studied. Experimental studies show that TCP Vegas performs better than the other variants.