Enhanced TCP Congestion Control Realizing Higher Throughput and Inter-Session Fairness in Multihop Wireless Networks

Abstract

It is known that TCP data transfer in a wireless multihop network experiences a degradation in inter-connection fairness and throughput. This is because TCP is designed for use in wired networks, and the wireless multihop network has characteristics of sharing of the medium resources among nodes, which wired networks do not have. In particular, in wireless multihop networks where wireless nodes widely exist, hidden/exposed terminal problems are caused even if an RTS/CTS handshake is used. In this paper, two methods are proposed to improve fairness and throughput, without any feedback information from the intermediate nodes or cross-layer information. One method restricts the transfer period, while the other restrains the TCP congestion window. We evaluated these methods using computer simulations.