A first look at TCP performance in indoor IEEE 802.11ad WLANs

Radio communication in the millimeter-wave (mmwave) frequency bands, recently standardized by the IEEE 802.11ad specification, is emerging as an alternative to the traditional 2.4/5GHz wireless systems, promising multi-Gigabit throughput. Most work in this area until now has focused on PHY/MAC layer design. In contrast, little attention has been paid towards transport layer performance. In this work, we experimentally characterize TCP´s behavior and its interplay with the lower layers of the protocol stack over 60GHz links in a typical office environment. Our results differ significantly from the those reported in the past for 60GHz links in a stable datacenter environment.