A Study on the High Performance TCP over Various Communication Links

Transmission Control Protocol (TCP) [1] has been tuned as a reliable transfer protocol for traditional networks comprising wired links and stationary hosts with same link characteristics. TCP assumes that congestion in the network be a primary cause for packet losses and unusual delays. TCP performs welt over such networks adapting to end-to-end delays and congestion losses, by standard congestion control mechanisms, such as slow-start, congestion avoidance, fast retransmit and recovery. However, networks with wireless and other lossy links suffer from significant losses due to bit errors and handoffs. An asymmetry network such as ADSL has different bandwidth for both directions. As a result, TCP`s standard mechanisms incur end-to-end performance degradation in various links. In this paper, we analyze the TCP problems in wireless, satellite, and asymmetry links, and measure the new TCP mechanisms that are recommended by IETF Performance Implications of Link Characteristics (PILC) WG[2], by using Network Simulator 2 (NS-2).