Compressing MAC Headers on Shared Wireless Media

This paper presents a header compression algorithm that unlike previous protocols is capable of compressing MAC headers in a multiple-access (shared) channel. Previous schemes could not compress MAC headers because the address fields are needed to identify the intended destination as well as the intended context space under which compressed headers are to be interpreted. We approach this problem by sharing a single context space among participating nodes. The compression context for a new flow between two nodes is initialized and synchronized by transmitting an uncompressed frame with a context label that is randomly selected by the sender. Frames with compressed MAC headers will have no address fields. A receiving node that has a context which matches the label in a compressed frame will be able to decompress the header by expanding the label into the corresponding fields stored in the context. Mechanisms are presented to address label conflicts where a node is receiving compressed fr...

• Type: Journal
• Year: 2009
• Where: ADHOCNETS
• Authors: Jesus Arango, Matthew Faulkner, Stephen Pink
• Keywords: ADHOCNETS 2009, Computer Networks, Context Space, Label, MAC Headers