Improving TCP performance in heterogeneous mobile networks

In this paper, a new transport mechanism is proposed to improve TCP performance in heterogeneous mobile networks. The proposed mechanism is comprised of two parts: a congestion predictor (CP) and a bandwidth estimator (BE). Based on the CP, the cause of a packet loss during roaming is determined. If the loss is considered caused by congestion in the wireline, the congestion window is halved; otherwise, the packet is considered lost in the last hop, the wireless portion, and the sender can adjust the growth of the congestion window based on the BE. Hence, our mechanism can adapt to heterogeneous wireless network environment and also enhance TCP performance. We have conducted simulations to evaluate the performance of the proposed mechanism. The results show that our mechanism significantly improves TCP performance as compared to existing solutions in heterogeneous mobile networks.