Introduction

Why TCP ?
Most widely used reliable transport protocol
Lessons learnt apply to other transport protocol
Implements congestion avoidance and control
Reliability achieved by means of retransmissions if
necessary
End-to-end semantics
Acknowledgements sent to TCP sender confirm delivery
of data received by TCP receiver
Ack for data sent only after data has reached receiver

The Presentation
Issues in the wireless world
Wireless TCP approaches
Wireless TCP protocols
I-TCP (Indirect TCP)
Snoop Protocol (handoffs)

Issues in the Wireless World:
High bit-error rate
channel fading
noise
interference
Intermittent Connectivity
Handoffs for mobile hosts
Asymmetric links (Space Communications)
Bandwidth
Delay
Packet loss

TCP in the Wireless World
Packet loss due to:
Motion
Bit errors
This packet loss
mistaken for congestion
Congestion control
mechanism initiated
Result:
-decrease in throughput
- increase in delay
- multiple packet loss
leads to bursts

FH
FH
Router
Loss =/=Congestion
Loss = Congestion
MH
Wireless Topology

Sender
MH
BS-1
BS-2
Wireless TCP Issues
Maintain end to end semantics
No or minimum changes to the TCP
implementation of the fixed host
Earlier implementations concentrated on FH
to MH transfers only
Earlier, MH to FH transfers used NACK
Recently, work started on MH to FH data
transfers (ELN)
researchers at Daimler Benz are working on a
prototype of a Mercedes car that runs a Web
server


Wireless TCP Schemes
End to End
ARQ/FEC
Link Layer
Wired TCP
Wireless TCP
Split Connection
Split Connection
TCP connection
terminates at base station
Hide wireless link from
sender: sender NOT aware
of non-congestion losses
Separate reliable
connection between base
station and mobile host

I-TCP: Indirect TCP
Breaks the TCP connection between FH and
MH into two connections at MSR
Connection between FH and MSR is regular
TCP
Connection between MSR and MH is any
transport layer protocol tuned for wireless
links.
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I-TCP indirect TCP (Cont.)
BS cache packets from FH and send back
ACK for MH.
if MH switches to another cell the center
point of the connection moves to the new
MSR, no need of reconnection.
FH is completely unaware of the indirection
and is not affected even when the MH
switches cells.
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Snoop Protocol
Basic idea
Modify the IP layer in the BS, and let BS cache
the TCP packets sent from FH before route it to
the MH.
If packet lost on wireless link, IP layer on the
BS will retransmit the packet .
BS suppress DUPACKs sent from MH to FH.
BS use shorter local timer for local timeout.
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Three kinds of data packets from
FH
A new packet in the normal TCP sequence.
(common case)
An out-of-sequence packet that has been
cached earlier. (sender retransmission)
An out-of-sequence packet that has not been
cached earlier. (congestion loss)
SNOOP
No modifications at the fixed host
Currently in use
Optimizations continue
FH to MH : Snoop
MH to FH : ELN
FH to BS : TCP
Transport
Network
Link
Physical
MH to FH
Link-aware TCP
(ELN)
FH to MH
TCP-aware link
(Snoop agent at BS)
BS (Snoop Agent)
Mobile Host
Fixed Host
Wire TCP
BS
Snoop_data()
Snoop_Ack()
Modified
TCP
SNOOP OVERVIEW
Snoop Agent
Cache unacknowledged TCP
data (from FH)
Local re-transmissions
Suppress DUPACK from FH
Monitor TCP data from MH
Set ELN and forward ACK to
MH

Snoop_data()

Snoop_Ack()
Conclusion
Various Link Layer and Transport Level proposals for improving
the performance of TCP over Wireless Links have been studied.
I-TCP
Snoop Scheme
The split-connection approach, with regular TCP used for
the wireless hop, shields the sender from wireless losses.

to improve the performance of TCP in networks with
wireless links and mobile hosts.
References
Karunaharan Ratnam and Ibrahim Matta. WTCP:An Efficient
Transmission Control Protocol for Networks with Wireless Links.
Technical Report NU-CCS-97-11, Northeastern University. July 1997.
Nitin Vaidya, Miten Mehta, Charles Perkins and Gabriel Montenegro.
Delayed Duplicate Acknowledgements: A TCP-Unaware Approach to
Improve Performance of TCP over Wireless. Technical Report 99-003,
February 1999.
Ajay Bakre and B.R. Badrinath. I-TCP: Indirect TCP for Mobile
Hosts.DCS-TR-314, Rutgers University, October 1994.
Elan Amir, Hari Balakrishnan, Srinivasan Seshan and Randy H. Katz.
Efficient TCP over Wireless Links.
Bikram S. Bakshi, P. Krishna, N.H. Vaidya and D.K. Pradhan.
Improving Performance of TCP over Wireless Networks. Texas A &
M University.
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