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[reports] Different Mechanism for Improving TCP Performance over Wireless Links


ABSTRACT

Most of the data transfer applications like FTP,  web transactions  use TCP/IP, the internet end-to-end transfer protocol. TCP has been tuned for traditional networks comprising wired links and stationary hosts. It assumes congestion in the network to be the primary cause for packet losses and unusual delays, and adapts to it.

The TCP receiver sends cumulative acknowledgments (ACKs) for successfully received segments, which the sender uses to determine which segments have been successfully received. The sender identifies the loss of a packet either by the arrival of several duplicate cumulative ACKs, triggering a fast retransmission, or by the absence of an ACK for a timeout interval equal to the sum of the smoothed round-trip delay and four times its mean deviation. TCP reacts to packet losses by retransmitting missing data, and simultaneously invoking congestion control by reducing its transmission (congestion) window size and backing off its retransmission timer. These measures reduce the level of congestion on the intermediate links.

Unfortunately, when packets are lost for reasons other than congestion, these measures result in an unnecessary reduction in end-to-end throughput and hence, in sub-optimal performance. Communication over wireless links is often characterized by high bit-error rates due to channel fading, noise or interference, and intermittent connectivity due to handoffs. TCP performance in such networks suffers from significant throughput degradation and very high interactive delays because the sender misinterprets corruption for congestion           

Many schemes have been proposed to alleviate this problem. The aim of this paper is to analyze these various schemes and propose newer ones which might help to circumvent this problem.

Section 1 begins with an introduction to TCP. It discusses the various features of TCP, and then goes on to discuss the various congestion control schemes. The discussion is complimented with time-line diagrams which give a pictorial view of the various scenarios considered.

 Section 2 tries to find out an answer to whether TCP is really required for the mobile clients and discusses the various wireless models like the wireless LAN and the cellular network. It then discusses the various problems that are associated with using TCP over the wireless links like the BER, Handoff?s due to user roaming into a new cell etc and goes on to describe the various proposed schemes.

Section 3 is the conclusion , which gives the best proposal that I liked, and possible improvements for others.

Attachment: The Transmission Control Protocol.doc
Description: MS-Word document