TCP IN WIRELESS

DOMAIN
Flickner, Eric J
Kanury, Sree Ramya
Lee, Soohee
 Contents
Introduction
Traditional TCP

TCP Over Wireless

Link layer solutions
- Snoop TCP
- TCP-unaware link layer

Split Approach based solutions

- ITCP
- M-TCP

End to end solutions

- ELN
- WTCP
- TCP SACK
- TTCP
 Introduction
Issues with Wireless Domain

- High error rates and low bandwidth

Traditional TCP guarantees in-order & reliable delivery in wired

network

TCP needs to be modified for wireless domain

 Traditional TCP
Provides Connection-oriented
- two applications must establish TCP connection before
they can exchange data

Full duplex protocol

Includes Flow-control mechanism

- allow receiver to limit how much data the sender can
transmit

Implements Congestion-control mechanism

Divides data stream into smaller segments

- Segment sequence number is used to provide in-order
packet delivery and data loss detection
Traditional TCP
 Traditional TCP

Congestion Control Mechanism

- Initial Window size: Max segment size

- Window get doubled for each

successful transmission

-TCP interpret Timeout as congestion

-> initialize Slow Start Threshold as half
of current window and reset window as
one Max segment size
 TCP Over Wireless
TCP Congestion mechanism causes problem in wireless
domain
- Wireless has high packet loss and variable latency,
which cause Slow Start and retransmission of lost
packets

Several alternatives are suggested.

- Let Link Layer correct all errors.
- FEC (Forward Error Correction): redundancy is
encoded into
the message.
- Redundancy is introduced only if error possibility is
found.
- Retransmission at link layer
 Snoop TCP

Buffer the data as close to Mobile Node as possible to minimize

retransmission time.
BS buffers the packets and removes them when it sees
acknowledgement.
BS retransmits if it gets duplicate acknowledgement or no
acknowledgement.

Several alternatives are suggested.

- Let Link Layer correct all errors.
- FEC (Forward Error Correction): redundancy is encoded into
the message.
- Redundancy is introduced only if error possibility is found.
- Retransmission at link layer
 TCP- Unaware Link Layer
 Main aim is to simulate the behavior of
the snoop TCP without requiring the link layer
at the BS to be TCP aware.

 At the BS ,link layer retransmission is

used to perform local error recovery.

 In this, retransmissions are triggered by

link level ACKs.
TCP receiver (MN) reduces interference between TCP
and link level retransmission by delaying third and
subsequent dupacks for interval d.

TCP receiver responds to the first two packets by

sending dupacks immediately.

Dupacks for further consecutive packets are delayed for

duration d
Advantages:

Link Layer need not be TCP aware.

Works well for small round trip times (RTTs) over the wireless link.

Disadvantage:
Optimal value of DUPACK delay is dependent on the wireless link.
 Indirect TCP

Splitting of TCP connection into two distinct connections, one

between the MN and BS and other between BS and CN.

Wireless link

Wired domain
MN AP CN
 Customized transport protocol between AP and MN.

Advantage:
Loss of packets in the wireless domain which cause a
retransmission in the wired domain is avoided.

Disadvantage:
Handoff may take a longer time.
 Mobile TCP

Connection between MN and BS is lost for small intervals of time.

This leads to time out by sender or data buffered by AP may be too

large or results in slow start.

MTCP handles this situation using a supervisory host.

MTCP maintains end-end TCP semantics even though TCP

connection is split at the supervisory host.
Advantages:

Avoids Retransmission

Avoids closing of contention window

Avoids slow start at the sender

4.4.7 Explicit Loss Notification
(ELN)
 4.4.8 WTCP - Reliable
Transmission Control Protocol
for Wide Area Wireless
Networks (WTCP)

Wireless TCP unique characteristic is separate mechanisms for

congestion control and reliability.
4.4.9 TCP Selective ACK (TCP
SACK)
 4.4.10 Transaction-Oriented
TCP (T-TCP)
TCP connection setup and tear-down is huge overhead for a small amount of
data, uses 3-way handshake
3 packets for a single transaction, 2 transactions per connection cycle
3 packets for setup + 1 for data + 3 packets for release = 7 packets minimum
To improve performance use T-TCP for small amount of data.
Integrate connection setup, tear-down, and data transfer combined into single
transaction
Usually only 2 or 3 packets are needed
Advantage
 Larger efficiency (low overhead)
Disadvantage
 Changed TCP
 Mobility not transparent, can’t affect existing framework
4.4.11 Impact of Mobility
 Fast retransmit/fast recovery
Handoff usually leads to packet loss during transit
TCP reacts with slow-start during handoff even when no congestion
Solution: Artificially force fast retransmit mode after handoff. Send
duplicate ACK after handoff, instead of entering slow start.

Advantages
•Simple changes result in significant higher performance
•Requires minimal changes to existing TCP structure

Disadvantages
•Scheme doesn’t consider fact of losses over links during handoff
 Using Multicast
Use multicast to improve performance by transmitting to select group
of base stations (likely to visit)
These base stations are directed to join multicast group.
Multicast group has unique address assigned to the node.
Packets destined for mobile node have to be readdressed for
multicast group.
Only one base station is connected with mobile node and is
responsible for TX packets to it.
Other BS in multicast group act as buffer so loss of packets can be
minimized.
Disadvantage
•Larger buffers, can be minimized by only buffering when handoff is
likely to occur.
Feature Snoop TCP- Mobile ITCP ELN WTCP TCP TTCP
TCP Unaware TCP SACK
Link Layer

Changes in:
AP Yes Yes Yes Yes No No No No
CN No No No No Yes Yes Yes Yes
MN Yes No Yes Yes Yes Yes No No

RetransmittinAP AP NA AP NA NA NA NA
g Node
Single point No No No Yes (AP) No No No No
Failure

Handoff Low Low Low Low High High High High

Latency
Security Breach No breach NA Breach at No No No No
at AP AP breach breach breach breach

End-to-end Yes Yes Yes No Yes Yes Yes Yes

semantics
Retransmissi Yes Yes No Yes No No No No