Stability and bifurcation analysis of Westwood+ TCP congestion control model in mobile cloud computing networks

In this paper, we first build up a Westwood+ TCP congestion control model with communication delay in mobile cloud computing networks. We then study the dynamics of this model by analyzing the distribution ranges of eigenvalues of its characteristic equation. Taking communication delay as the bifurcation parameter, we derive the linear stability criteria depending on communication delay. Furthermore, we study the direction of Hopf bifurcation as well as the stability of periodic solution for the Westwood+ TCP congestion control model with communication delay. We find that the Hopf bifurcation occurs when the communication delay passes a sequence of critical values. The stability and direction of the Hopf bifurcation are determined by the normal form theory and the center manifold theorem. Finally, numerical simulation is done to verify the theoretical results

On the Interaction between TCP and the Wireless Channel in CDMA2000 Networks

In this work, we conducted extensive active measurements on a large nationwide CDMA2000 1xRTT network in order to characterize the impact of both the Radio Link Protocol and more importantly, the wireless scheduler, on TCP. Our measurements include standard TCP/UDP logs, as well as detailed RF layer statistics that allow observability into RF dynamics. With the help of a robust correlation measure, normalized mutual information, we were able to quantify the impact of these two RF factors on TCP performance metrics such as the round trip time, packet loss rate, instantaneous throughput etc. We show that the variable channel rate has the larger impact on TCP behavior when compared to the Radio Link Protocol. Furthermore, we expose and rank the factors that influence the assigned channel rate itself and in particular, demonstrate the sensitivity of the wireless scheduler to the data sending rate. Thus, TCP is adapting its rate to match the available network capacity, while the rate allocated by the wireless scheduler is influenced by the sender's behavior. Such a system is best described as a closed loop system with two feedback controllers, the TCP controller and the wireless scheduler, each one affecting the other's decisions. In this work, we take the first steps in characterizing such a system in a realistic environment

The effect of queue size on the throughput, in group failure mode, for the loaded transport channel

The external data flow decreases the throughput of the transport connection. The indicator of this external load is the queue size in front of the protocol data. In this article, using a mathematical model in analytical and numerical forms, the relation between the throughput of the channel and the protocol parameters are presented including the queue size parameter. In this work the effect of the queue size on time-out duration has been shown, which is one of the important parameters and it's studied weakly in researches. Also, the relation between round-trip delay, the reliability of the transmission of the information segments with queue size are also shown

TCP over CDMA2000 Networks: A Cross-Layer Measurement Study

Modern cellular channels in 3G networks incorporate sophisticated power control and dynamic rate adaptation which can have significant impact on adaptive transport layer protocols, such as TCP. Though there exists studies that have evaluated the performance of TCP over such networks, they are based solely on observations at the transport layer and hence have no visibility into the impact of lower layer dynamics, which are a key characteristic of these networks. In this work, we present a detailed characterization of TCP behavior based on cross-layer measurement of transport layer, as well as RF and MAC layer parameters. In particular, through a series of active TCP/UDP experiments and measurement of the relevant variables at all three layers, we characterize both, the wireless scheduler and the radio link protocol in a commercial CDMA2000 network and assess their impact on TCP dynamics. Somewhat surprisingly, our findings indicate that the wireless scheduler is mostly insensitive to channel quality and sector load over short timescales and is mainly affected by the transport layer data rate. Furthermore, with the help of a robust correlation measure, Normalized Mutual Information, we were able to quantify the impact of the wireless scheduler and the radio link protocol on various TCP parameters such as the round trip time, throughput and packet loss rate

TCP over Satellite Hybrid Networks: A Survey

Satellite is going to play an important role in the global information infrastructure. Satellite canprovide direct to home Internet service (i.e. DirecPC from Hughes Network System) and it can alsoserve as traffic trunk in the middle of the network. About 98 percent of the Internet traffic is TCPtraffic. TCP works well in the terrestrial fiber network. However, in the satellite hybrid networks,because of the long propagation delay, large bandwidth-delay product, high bit error rate anddownstream/upstream bandwidth asymmetry, TCP performance degrades dramatically. This paperaddresses the problems of TCP in satellite data networks and reviews the proposed solutions in theliterature. For each solution, the advantages and disadvantages are pointed out. In addition,extensive simulations have been done for the proxy based scheme currently used in the industry tofind out how and to what extent the enhancements, such as connection splitting, window scalingand selective acknowledgement, benefit the TCP throughput

TCP over CDMA2000 Networks: A Cross-Layer Measurement Study

Modern cellular channels in 3G networks incorporate sophisticated power control and dynamic rate adaptation which can have a significant impact on adaptive transport layer protocols, such as TCP. Though there exists studies that have evaluated the performance of TCP over such networks, they are based solely on observations at the transport layer and hence have no visibility into the impact of lower layer dynamics, which are a key characteristic of these networks. In this work, we present a detailed characterization of TCP behavior based on cross-layer measurement of transport, as well as RF and MAC layer parameters. In particular, through a series of active TCP/UDP experiments and measurement of the relevant variables at all three layers, we characterize both, the wireless scheduler in a commercial CDMA2000 network and its impact on TCP dynamics. Somewhat surprisingly, our findings indicate that the wireless scheduler is mostly insensitive to channel quality and sector load over short timescales and is mainly affected by the transport layer data rate. Furthermore, we empirically demonstrate the impact of the wireless scheduler on various TCP parameters such as the round trip time, throughput and packet loss rate

Bandwidth tradeoff between TCP and link-level FEC

FEC is widely used to improve the quality of noisy transmission media as wireless links. This improvement is of importance for a transport protocol as TCP which uses the loss of packets as an indication of network congestion. FEC shields TCP from losses not caused by congestion but it consumes some bandwidth that could be used by TCP. We study in this paper the tradeoff between the bandwidth consumed by FEC and that gained by TCP

Evaluating and improving the performance of video content distribution in lossy networks

The contributions in this research are split in to three distinct, but related, areas. The focus of the work is based on improving the efficiency of video content distribution in the networks that are liable to packet loss, such as the Internet. Initially, the benefits and limitations of content distribution using Forward Error Correction (FEC) in conjunction with the Transmission Control Protocol (TCP) is presented. Since added FEC can be used to reduce the number of retransmissions, the requirement for TCP to deal with any losses is greatly reduced. When real-time applications are needed, delay must be kept to a minimum, and retransmissions not desirable. A balance, therefore, between additional bandwidth and delays due to retransmissions must be struck. This is followed by the proposal of a hybrid transport, specifically for H.264 encoded video, as a compromise between the delay-prone TCP and the loss-prone UDP. It is argued that the playback quality at the receiver often need not be 100% perfect, providing a certain level is assured. Reliable TCP is used to transmit and guarantee delivery of the most important packets. The delay associated with the proposal is measured, and the potential for use as an alternative to the conventional methods of transporting video by either TCP or UDP alone is demonstrated. Finally, a new objective measurement is investigated for assessing the playback quality of video transported using TCP. A new metric is defined to characterise the quality of playback in terms of its continuity. Using packet traces generated from real TCP connections in a lossy environment, simulating the playback of a video is possible, whilst monitoring buffer behaviour to calculate pause intensity values. Subjective tests are conducted to verify the effectiveness of the metric introduced and show that the results of objective and subjective scores made are closely correlated