TCP vs. UDP Performance Evaluation for CBR Traffic On Wireless Multihop Networks

Multimedia applications over wireless networks become more and more demanding with respect to Quality of Service (QoS) and power consumption. As network behavior is a very important factor affecting the overall system performance, the protocol stack needs to be studied regarding Quality of Service (QoS) management. Power saving is another feature that network functionality must provide as mobility yields for battery self-sufficiency. This paper discusses QoS and power management at the transport layer of the protocol stack. More precisely, TCP and UDP are studied as different transport layer alternatives and their performance is evaluated with respect to QoS (i.e. mean/instant throughput as well as max and mean delay) and power behavior under multimedia-like streaming conditions.