Compatibility of TCP Reno and TCP Vegas in wireless ad hoc networks

Previous work has shown that TCP (transmission control protocol) Vegas outperforms the more widely deployed TCP Reno in both wired and wireless networks. It was also shown that when both TCP variants coexist on the same wired links, Reno dominates because of its more aggressive behaviour. This paper examines for the first time the compatibility between Reno and Vegas in wireless IEEE 802.11 ad hoc networks. It is shown that Vegas generally dominates in the heterogeneous Reno/Vegas network scenario; a startling result that is inconsistent with what is seen in wired networks. It is shown that the wireless ad hoc network environment does not reward the aggressive behaviour of Reno. On the other hand, Vegas, with its more accurate yet more conservative mechanisms, is able to capture most of the bandwidth. This is found to be true when using the on-demand routing protocols of dynamic source routing (DSR) or ad hoc on-demand distance vector (AODV): the failure of a node to reach a next-hop node because of media access control (MAC)-sublayer repeated collisions is reported to the routing protocol, which then declares a route error that impacts Reno in a more serious way than Vegas. When the table-driven routing protocol destination-sequenced distance vector (DSDV) is used, Reno and Vegas share the network bandwidth in a fairer manner. Generally, fairness in this environment can be improved by reducing the TCP maximum window size.