Interactions of TCP and radio link ARQ protocol

Abstract

Two distinct error and flow control schemes may be simultaneously involved in wireless Internet networks. One is an end-to-end transport protocol, TCP, which provides reliable packet delivery with flow and congestion control, and the other is a radio link ARQ protocol which provides radio link layer frame error recovery. In this paper, we investigate interactions between these two separate error control mechanisms by simulating TCP Reno over IS-707, a radio link ARQ protocol standard for spread spectrum digital cellular systems. We show the effects of TCP sliding window size to the overall system performance under a variety of radio link scenarios, and present the beneficial effects of longer persistence in radio link frame error recovery for best-effort bulk data applications.