Study of Proposed Methods for Improving TCP Performance Over Wireless Links

TL;DR

This paper reviews various methods to improve TCP performance over wireless links, analyzing their technical pros and cons, and proposes the most effective scheme for enhancing end-to-end communication in lossy wireless environments.

Contribution

It provides a comprehensive analysis of existing TCP enhancement techniques for wireless links and suggests the most suitable scheme based on technical evaluation.

Findings

Different TCP enhancement schemes have varying advantages and disadvantages.

The study identifies the most effective scheme for wireless networks.

Analysis guides optimal choice of TCP modifications for wireless environments.

Abstract

TCP is designed for networks with assumption that major losses occur only due to congestion of network traffic. On a wireless network TCP misinterprets the transmission losses due to bit errors and handoffs as losses caused by congestion, and triggers congestion control mechanisms. Because of its end to end delivery model, congestion handling and avoidance mechanisms, TCP has been widely accepted as Transport layer protocol for internetworks. Extension of Internetworks over wireless links is inevitable with the spread of ubiquitous computing and mobile communications. This paper presents study of different mechanisms proposed to extend Transport Control Protocol and other alternate solutions to enhance end to end performance over lossy wireless links. The paper studies details of different design choices proposed and their technical advantages and disadvantages. Finally, an analysis and proposal for best choice of proposed schemes are made for wireless networks.