TFRC-EA: An Adaptive Algorithm of TFRC in Satellite Networks

As one of the most popular solutions to enable efficient multimedia service data delivery, transmission control protocol (TCP) friendly rate control (TFRC) protocol is capable of smoothly adjusting the throughput to avoid congestions based on the environment of the networks. However, the performance of TFRC in satellite networks degrades seriously. This is mainly because the low signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) of the wireless links results in serious packet loss rate, and the TFRC cannot precisely separate the two reasons of the packet loss, network congestions and wireless link errors. In this paper, we propose the TFRC with environment adaptation (TFRC-EA) as an extension to the traditional TFRC protocol. In TFRC-EA, by analyzing the network status based on the communication parameters such as link length and wavelength, the receiver calculates the expected packet loss rate, and send the result to the sender as the feedback. The throughput model is improved in TFRC-EA, enabling the more accurate transmission rate adjusting. Simulation results show that TFRC-EA significantly increases the throughput compared with the original TFRC and TCP, and reduces the delay jitter of the data stream.