On the performance of TCP spoofing in satellite networks

In this paper, we analyze the performance of TCP in a network that consists of both satellite and terrestrial components. One method, proposed by outside research, to improve the performance of data transfers over satellites is to use a performance enhancing proxy often dubbed "spoofing". Spoofing involves the transparent splitting of a TCP connection between the source and destination by some entity within the network path. In order to analyze the impact of spoofing, we constructed a simulation suite based around the network simulator ns-2. The simulation reflects a host with a satellite connection to the Internet and allows the option to spoof connections just prior to the satellite. The methodology used in our simulation allows us to analyze spoofing over a large range of file sizes and under various congested conditions, while prior work on this topic has primarily focused on bulk transfers with no congestion. As a result of these simulations, we find that the performance of spoofing is dependent upon a number of conditions.