The impact of lossy links on TCP performance in IEEE 802.11 based ad hoc networks

In this paper, we develop analytical models for a single persistent TCP flow in the presence of channel error-induced packet loss over IEEE 802.11 based multi-hop networks. Two analytical models are proposed, based on different packet loss models: periodic packet loss model and i.i.d. random packet loss model. For the latter, we develop a stochastic model using the Markov renewal reward approach. The analytical results are validated against results using the ns simulator. The results show that the impact of the channel errors is reduced significantly with packet retransmissions on a per-hop basis and the two models are valid for a packet error rate ranging from 0 to ∼0.05.