FECTCP for high packet error rate wireless channels

Current Internet protocols like TCP have been designed to work well on channels with low channel error rates. Wireless channels on the other hand exhibit high loss rates when compared to wired channels. Current TCP implementations usually attribute packet losses caused by channel errors as being actually caused by congestion. The result is an unnecessary reduction of the sending rate which leads to a performance degradation. For channels with high packet error rates a discrimination mechanism between channel loss and congestion loss is needed in order to make TCP perform better over such links. This paper presents an approach for the implementation of a TCP-like transport protocol by using rateless erasure correcting codes for the error handling mechanism. Based on the distribution of packet losses on the channel the classical congestion control mechanism of TCP is modified as to better differentiate between packet losses caused by the wireless link and packet losses caused by congestion.