Adapting TFRC to mobile networks with frequent disconnections

In the context of mobile and pervasive networking, it is not uncommon to experience frequent loss of connectivity. Congestion control algorithms usually mistake resulting packets losses for congestion events and unnecessarily reduce their network usage. We propose an enhancement to the TCPFriendly Rate Control (TFRC) protocol to overcome this issue. Our contribution proposes to suspend the data transfer, in a way similar to Freeze-TCP, when an upcoming disconnection is predicted. Furthermore, a probing mechanism is introduced to enable fast adaptation to new network conditions. We present a description of the additional freezing and resuming mechanisms. This proposal has been implemented in ns-2. Simulation results are thus compared to the regular behavior and show encouraging improvements. Keywords TFRC, congestion control, MANET, mobility, DCCP

• Type: Conference
• Year: 2008
• Where: CONEXT
• Authors: Olivier Mehani, Roksana Boreli
• Keywords: Computer Networks, CONEXT 2008, Congestion Control, Congestion Control Algorithms, TCPFriendly Rate Control