A new method to improve the TCP performance in wireless cellular networks

The various characteristics of wireless environments deteriorate the performance of the wireless system sharply in terms of system throughput, network capacity and TCP performance. There are lots of protocols which can significantly improve the TCP performance, such as Snoop, which uses the method like hiding the packet loss from the TCP sender. However when handoffs occur, the packet loss due to mobile terminal handoffs has to be taken into consideration. In this paper, we propose a new method to improve the TCP performance with concerns of mobile terminal handoffs. The new method is named as Enhanced Snoop (ES), which acts as a holistic solution to increase the TCP throughput in wireless cellular networks. We also conduct extensive computer simulations to study the system performances of ES protocol. Simulation results illustrate that the proposed ES protocol can significantly improve the performance of TCP in wireless cellular networks, especially in the scenarios of frequent handoffs.