Network Coded TCP (CTCP) Performance over Satellite Networks

We show preliminary results for the performance of Network Coded TCP (CTCP) over large latency networks. While CTCP performs very well in networks with relatively short RTT , the slow-start mechanism currently employed does not adequately fill the available bandwidth when the RTT is large. Regardless, we show that CTCP still outperforms current TCP variants (i.e., Cubic TCP and Hybla TCP) for high packet loss rates (e.g., > 2.5%). We then explore the possibility of a modified congestion control mechanism based off of H-TCP that opens the congestion window quickly to overcome the challenges of large latency networks. Preliminary results are provided that show the combination of network coding with an appropriate congestion control algorithm can provide gains on the order of 20 times that of existing TCP variants. Finally, we provide a discussion of the future work needed to increase CTCP's performance in these networks. Keywords—Network Coding; TCP; High Delay.

[1]  Muriel Médard,et al.  Joint coding and scheduling optimization in wireless systems with varying delay sensitivities , 2012, 2012 9th Annual IEEE Communications Society Conference on Sensor, Mesh and Ad Hoc Communications and Networks (SECON).

[2]  Koushik Kar,et al.  MPLOT: A Transport Protocol Exploiting Multipath Diversity Using Erasure Codes , 2008, IEEE INFOCOM 2008 - The 27th Conference on Computer Communications.

[3]  Fabien Garcia,et al.  A New Survey on Improving TCP Performances over Geostationary Satellite Link , 2013, Netw. Commun. Technol..

[4]  Muriel Médard,et al.  Network Coded TCP (CTCP) , 2012, ArXiv.

[5]  Douglas J. Leith,et al.  H-TCP : TCP for high-speed and long-distance networks , 2004 .

[6]  Knut Øvsthus,et al.  TCP challenges in hybrid military satellite networks; measurements and comparison , 2012, MILCOM 2012 - 2012 IEEE Military Communications Conference.

[7]  Carlo Caini,et al.  TCP Hybla: a TCP enhancement for heterogeneous networks , 2004, Int. J. Satell. Commun. Netw..

[8]  Mario Marchese,et al.  Transport layer protocols and architectures for satellite networks , 2007, Int. J. Satell. Commun. Netw..

[9]  Tracey Ho,et al.  A Random Linear Network Coding Approach to Multicast , 2006, IEEE Transactions on Information Theory.

[10]  Injong Rhee,et al.  CUBIC: a new TCP-friendly high-speed TCP variant , 2008, OPSR.

[11]  Shrisha Rao,et al.  Comparative performance evaluation of TCP Hybla and TCP Cubic for satellite communication under low error conditions , 2010, 2010 IEEE 4th International Conference on Internet Multimedia Services Architecture and Application.

[12]  Koushik Kar,et al.  Loss-Tolerant TCP (LT-TCP): Implementation and experimental evaluation , 2012, MILCOM 2012 - 2012 IEEE Military Communications Conference.