TCP-Peachtree: a multicast transport protocol for satellite IP networks

In this paper, a reliable multicast transport protocol TCP-Peachtree is proposed for satellite Internet protocol (IP) networks. In addition to the acknowledgment implosion and scalability problems in terrestrial wirelined networks, satellite multicasting has additional problems, i.e., different multicast topology, different type of congestion control problems, and low bandwidth feedback link. In TCP-Peachtree, the modified B+ tree logical hierarchical structure is used to form dynamic multicast groups. Local error recovery and acknowledgment (ACK) aggregations are performed within each subgroup and also via logical subgroups. In order to avoid the overall performance degradation caused by some worst receivers, a local relay scheme is designed. Two new algorithms, jump start and quick recovery, which are based on the usage of a type of low-priority segments called NIL segments, are proposed for congestion control. NIL segments are used to probe the availability of network resources and also for error recovery. The delayed selective acknowledgment (SACK) scheme is adopted to address the bandwidth asymmetry problems and a hold state is developed to address persistent fades. The simulation results show that the congestion control algorithms of TCP-Peachtree outperform the TCP-NewReno when combined with our hierarchical groups and improve the throughput performance during rain fades. It is also shown that TCP-Peachtree achieves fairness and is very highly scalability.