TCP with adaptive pacing for multihop wireless networks

ABSTRACT

In this paper, we introduce a novel congestion control algorithm for TCP over multihop IEEE 802.11 wireless networks implementing rate-based scheduling of transmissions within the TCP congestion window. We show how a TCP sender can adapt its transmission rate close to the optimum using an estimate of the current 4-hop propagation delay and the coefficient of variation of recently measured round-trip times. The novel TCP variant is denoted as TCP with Adaptive Pacing (TCP-AP). Opposed to previous proposals for improving TCP over multihop IEEE 802.11 networks, TCP-AP retains the end-to-end semantics of TCP and does neither rely on modifications on the routing or the link layer nor requires cross-layer information from intermediate nodes along the path. A comprehensive simulation study using ns-2 shows that TCP-AP achieves up to 84% more goodput than TCP NewReno, provides excellent fairness in almost all scenarios, and is highly responsive to changing traffic conditions.

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INDEX TERMS

Primary Classification:
  C. Computer Systems Organization
  C.2 COMPUTER-COMMUNICATION NETWORKS
      C.2.0 General
          Subjects: Data communications

General Terms:
Algorithms, Design, Performance

Keywords:
IEEE 802.11 wireless networks, analysis and design of transport protocols, end-to-end congestion control, performance evaluation