TCP wave resilience to link changes: A new transport layer approach towards dynamic communication environments

In case of hybrid access networks, the selected link can suddenly change leading to a vertical handover. A running TCP connection can experience a combination of three potential effects: a bandwidth change, a latency change and an outage interval due to handover operations. In this context, we address a detailed performance analysis of standard TCP, in comparison with a new TCP-based protocol, namely TCP Wave, which mainly replaces traditional window-based transmission paradigm with a proactive burst transmission. Previous studies demonstrate TCP Wave capability to quickly adapt its rate to dynamic link variations, so that its application in the target scenario is considered worth. Performance assessment is carried out using the Network Simulator (Ns-3) over a different set of possible configurations in terms of handover direction, outage duration and selected transport protocol. The achieved results confirm the TCP Wave efficiency in dealing with link changes and provide a high number of interesting hints for drawing requirements of the TCP-based transport protocols operating on future dynamic networks.