An End-to-End Cross-Layer Profiling Study of Congestion Control in High BDP Wireless Networks

We describe a cross-layer study that attempts at profiling the performance of end-to-end congestion control protocols in high BDP wireless networks. Packets transmitted over such networks are assumed to face temporally correlated random bit errors caused by fading and/or blocking. We utilize a finite-state Markov chain to model bit error characteristics and apply per packet link layer FEC codes in order to compensate for such errors. Utilizing our model along with loss expressions, we profile the end-to-end performance of XCP, VCP, and TCP/AQM+ECN congestion control protocols. Based on our profiling results, we observe that (1) the performance of any congestion control protocol highly degrades without properly protecting its data and signaling information against random bit errors, (2) utilizing multiple antenna nodes improves the transient characteristics of the congestion control protocol in terms of utilization and packet error rates, and (3) XCP and VCP represent the best alternatives of congestion control for high bandwidth moderate delay and moderate bandwidth large delay environments, respectively.