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

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

Multimedia Streaming through Wireless Networks

An overview of wireless networks, cross-layer optimization techniques, and advances in wireless LAN technologies is presented. This paper presents a scalable and adaptive system-level approach to wireless multimedia in the emerging, Proactive Enterprise computing environment. A Distributed Network Information Base with Service Agents at each node is proposed to enable network-wide, proactive adaptation with adaptive routing and end-to-end Quality of Service (QoS) management. The paper suggests that a combination of technological advancements in emerging wireless networks, node-level cross-layer optimizations, and the proposed distributed cross-node system-level architecture are all required to efficiently scale and adapt wireless multimedia in the current market

An Efficient and Reliable Data Transmission Service using Network Coding Algorithms in Peer-to-Peer Network

Network coding is a progressive enhancement in natural network routing that increases throughput and reliability for unicast, multicast, and even broadcast transmissions. P2P networks are ideal for implementing network coding algorithms for two reasons: I. A P2P network's topology isn't predetermined. As a result, designing a topology that is compatible with the network coding algorithm is much easier. II. Every peer is an end host in this network.  As a result, instead of saving and sending the message, complex network coding operations, such as encoding and decoding, are now easier to perform. The objective of this work is to use the best features of network coding algorithms and properly apply them to P2P networks to create an efficient and reliable data transmission service. The goal of the network coding algorithm is to make better use of network resources and thus increase P2P network capacity. An encoding algorithm that enables an intermediate peer to produce output messages by encoding (that is, computing a function of the data it receives. The decoder's role is to obtain enough encoded packets so that the original information can be recovered. This research work has measured an amount of hypothetical and applied consequences in which the network coding procedure or a variation of it is used to improve performance parameters such as throughput and reliability in P2P network data transmission based on network coding. The comparison of data transmission between network routing and network coding algorithms was the main focus of this paper.  According to our simulations, the new network coding systems can reach 15% to 20% upper throughput than supplementary P2P network routing systems

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

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

Impact of Mobility and Wireless Channel on the Performance of Wireless Networks

This thesis studies the impact of mobility and wireless channel characteristics, i. e. , variability and high bit-error-rate, on the performance of integrated voice and data wireless systems from network, transport protocol and application perspectives. From the network perspective, we study the impact of user mobility on radio resource allocation. The goal is to design resource allocation mechanisms that provide seamless mobility for voice calls while being fair to data calls. In particular, we develop a distributed admission control for a general integrated voice and data wireless system. We model the number of active calls in a cell of the network as a Gaussian process with time-dependent mean and variance. The Gaussian model is updated periodically using the information obtained from neighboring cells about their load conditions. We show that the proposed scheme guarantees a prespecified dropping probability for voice calls while being fair to data calls. Furthermore, the scheme is stable, insensitive to user mobility process and robust to load variations. From the transport protocol perspective, we study the impact of wireless channel variations and rate scheduling on the performance of elastic data traffic carried by TCP. We explore cross-layer optimization of the rate adaptation feature of cellular networks to optimize TCP throughput. We propose a TCP-aware scheduler that switches between two rates as a function of TCP sending rate. We develop a fluid model of the steady-state TCP behavior for such a system and derive analytical expressions for TCP throughput that explicitly account for rate variability as well as the dependency between the scheduler and TCP. The model is used to choose RF layer parameters that, in conjunction with the TCP-aware scheduler, improve long-term TCP throughput in wireless networks. A distinctive feature of our model is its ability to capture variability of round-trip-time, channel rate and packet error probability inherent to wireless communications. From the application perspective, we study the performance of wireless messaging systems. Two popular wireless applications, the short messaging service and multimedia messaging service are considered. We develop a mathematical model to evaluate the performance of these systems taking into consideration the fact that each message tolerates only a limited amount of waiting time in the system. Using the model, closed-form expressions for critical performance parameters such as message loss, message delay and expiry probability are derived. Furthermore, a simple algorithm is presented to find the optimal temporary storage size that minimizes message delay for a given set of system parameters