TCP-real: improving real-time capabilities of TCP over heterogeneous networks

We present a TCP-compatible and -friendly protocol which abolishes three major shortfalls of TCP for reliable multimedia applications over heterogeneous networks: (i) ineffective bandwidth utilization, (ii) unnecessary congestion-oriented responses to wireless link errors (e.g., fading channels) and operations (e.g. handoffs), and (iii) wasteful window adjustments over asymmetric, low-bandwidth reverse paths. We propose TCPReal, a high-throughput transport protocol that minimizes transmission-rate gaps, thereby enabling better performance and reasonable playback timers. In TCP-Real, the receiver decides with better accuracy about the appropriate size of the congestion window. Slow Start and timeout adjustments are used whenever congestion avoidance fails; however, rate and timeout adjustments are cancelled whenever the receiving rate indicates sufficient availability of bandwidth. We detail the protocol design and we report significant improvement on the performance of the protocol wi...

• Type: Conference
• Year: 2001
• Where: NOSSDAV
• Authors: Chi Zhang, Vassilios Tsaoussidis
• Keywords: Computer Networks, Ineffective Bandwidth Utilization, NOSSDAV 2001, Timeout Adjustments, Wireless Link Errors