WLC47-1: Modeling the Effect of Mobile Handoffs on TCP and TFRC Throughput

At the forefront of the recent advances in mobile networks is the development of sophisticated mobility management mechanisms that are usually based on Mobile IP and its derivatives. Based on these mobility management protocols, several studies that characterize transport protocol performance have been presented. In this work we move one step further, and present a joint performance evaluation model of TCP and TFRC, with the underlying IP-based mobility protocols. We develop stochastic models that can characterize the protocol performance during handoffs between heterogeneous wireless networks like WLAN, cellular, or WMAN. We present performance evaluation results for validating the developed models under a set of different handoff scenarios. The developed model can be utilized as a basis for further analytical evaluation of new mobility management protocols, allowing thus a fast and accurate comparison.