On the use of Snoop with geostationary satellite links

The performance of TCP decreases significantly when used over networks that exhibit a high bit error rate, as TCP has insufficient information to distinguish between loss that is due to corruption and that which is due to congestion. As a result, all loss is assumed to be congestion based, causing TCP to invoke its congestion control algorithms, even if the loss was not congestion related. A TCP-aware link level protocol known as Snoop was developed for use with wireless networks and it has been shown to provide significant improvements in TCP over wireless performance. Given that satellite links and wireless networks share many characteristics that result in high bit error rates, the use of Snoop may provide similar performance gains for satellite links. This paper details research undertaken to determine the applicability of Snoop to geostationary satellite links. A model is developed and simulated, with the results being detailed, discussed and analysed.