Performance Analysis of TCP/IP/Q-Persistence ARQ over Satellite links

There are two general approaches to improve TCP performance in a lossy network. The first approach is to use a split-connection protocol, which provides packet recovery at the gateways. The second approach is to enhance both the physical and link layer´s reliability. Automatic repeat request (ARQ) is commonly used at the link layer of wireless networks to enhance TCP performance. However, the combined TCP and ARQ approach leads to a protocol interaction problem because of the greater variability in round-trip time due to ARQ retransmission. One way to mitigate this interaction is to use a Q-persistent ARQ scheme, which limits the number of retransmissions to a maximum of q times, and thus places a maximum delay bound on packet delivery time. In this paper, we examine the performance of TCP with proposed g-persistent ARQ, using emulation to validate our analytical results.