Save for Later: A Technique for Improving End-to-End Mesh Network Performance

Due to fading and node mobility, packet loss in wireless networks is prevalent and unavoidable. Significant research has been conducted to improve the quality of wireless networks. Compared to other wireless networks, the backbone of a wireless mesh network (WMN) tends to be a relatively static topology and thus link error is likely to be transient rather than permanent. This paper proposes a technique, Save For Later (SFL), that leverages such transience to improve the performance of WMNs. SFL is a link-layer enhancement that allows an intermediate mesh router to temporarily save failed transmissions due to the high probability that a later successful transmission will convey that the failure is transient in nature. The paper develops a stochastic model to analyze the steady state throughput of a TCP bulk data transfer under SFL. Finally, the paper shows through simulation and analytical results that SFL elegantly improves the performance of WMNs in terms of throughput and flow fairness.