Interaction of wireless TCP schemes and rerouting: Analytical models and simulation

The performance of wireless Transmission Control Protocol (TCP) schemes is directly tied to the underlying network protocol and the rerouting strategies used after a handoff. Analytical models are proposed for the various interactions and verified by simulation to determine the buffer requirements at base stations (BS) and to estimate disruption time which is the time between the arrival of the last packet to the mobile receiver while at the cell of the old BS and the arrival of the first packet to the mobile receiver while at the cell of the new BS. This evaluation will aid a protocol designer to pick the right combination of wireless TCP scheme and rerouting strategy based on the network properties including mobility patterns, network topology, and others. Towards this, we provide for the first time protocols for reliable communication that takes into account every combination of wireless TCP schemes and rerouting strategies.