Achieving TCP optimization over wireless links through joint FEC and power management: an analytical study

TCP has serious performance problems when wireless links are involved in the end-to-end connection because of the high bit error rate typical of the wireless medium. Joint power management and error correction can improve the link reliability and increase the throughput performance. In this paper, the tradeoff between power management and error correction is investigated. To this end, an analytical framework aimed at maximizing the throughput per unitary cost, defined as the ratio between the TCP throughput and a cost function, is introduced. The proposed analytical framework is general and some significant results have been derived which do not depend on the specific wireless system and do not rely on any TCP throughput approximation formula. The benefits of joint power management and error control are demonstrated in several relevant case studies. The accuracy of the proposed analytical framework is assessed through ns-2 simulation