Improving TCP/IP Performance over Wireless IEEE 802.11 Link

TL;DR

This paper evaluates TCP and UDP performance over IEEE 802.11 wireless links under various traffic patterns, analyzing the impact of FEC and MAC parameters on throughput, packet loss, and response time.

Contribution

It provides a comprehensive analysis of TCP/UDP performance over wireless links considering different traffic types and explores the effects of FEC and MAC settings.

Findings

FEC improves throughput and reduces packet loss for real-time audio.

MAC parameter tuning affects response time and throughput.

Different traffic patterns require tailored optimization strategies.

Abstract

Cellular phones, wireless laptops, personal portable devices that supports both voice and data access are all examples of communicating devices that uses wireless communication. Sine TCP/IP (and UDP) is the dominant technology in use in the internet, it is expected that they will be used (and they are currently) over wireless connections. In this paper, we investigate the performance of the TCP (and UDP) over IEEE802.11 wireless MAC protocol. We investigate the performance of the TCP and UDP assuming three different traffic patterns. First bulk transmission where the main concern is the throughput. Second real-time audio (using UDP) in the existence of bulk TCP transmission where the main concern is the packet loss for audio traffic. Finally web traffic where the main concern is the response time. We also investigate the effect of using forward Error Correction (FEC) technique and the MAC sublayer parameters on the throughput and response time.