TCP optimization in wireless mesh backhaul networks

This paper deals with the analysis of cross-layer approaches to TCP performance enhancement in wireless multi- hop networks. The work has been carried out within the MEMBRANE project, which aims to design and develop a reconfigurable multi-antenna, multi-hop wireless backhaul network. We considered three TCP algorithms, i.e. NewReno, Jersey and TIBET, and three cross-layering information exchange mechanisms, i.e Explicit Congestion Notification (ECN), Explicit Loss Notification (ELN), Explicit Rate Notification (ERN), the last one expressly devised for the MEMBRANE scenario. Simulation results show that by adding cross-layering notifications TCP performance can be considerably improved: when the channel quality is high, ERN can offer some improvement to base TCP algorithms performance; when the channel quality is poor, ELN significantly improves performance.