Transport Layer for Mobile Ad

hoc Networks
CS 647: Advanced Topics in
Wireless Networks
Drs. Baruch Awerbuch and Amitabh Mishra
Computer Science Department
Johns Hopkins
5-1

Reading
Chapter 7 Ad Hoc & Sensor Networking,

Cordeiro & Agrawal, 2007

One of the suggested text for the course

5-2

Outline
Overview of TCP
The problems of TCP over MANETs
Overview of best transport protocols
In depth

Specific problems of TCP over MANETs

Details of major TCP variants
Discussion - other efforts

Conclusion

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TCP in Wired Network and

MANETData stream in Wired Network

ACKs stream

Data stream in a MANET

TCP
Source 1

TCP
N Sink

ACKs stream

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Introduction

Network Architecture at a
Crossroads
Wireline-centric network design is obsolete
New network environments have emerged

Ad hoc, sensors, consumer-owned, delay-tolerant

New networking technologies have emerged

UWB, cooperative approaches, MIMO, directed antennas

The R&D community recognizes the need for

change

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Introduction

Revisiting the Current Transport

Architecture
The vision:
Wireless as an integral part of the network
Multiple wireless hops: not just the last mile
(Cellular)
Pockets of wireless ad hoc connectivity
A new protocol stack is required
Is TCP/IP capable of delivering?

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Problem Statement
Why does TCP perform poorly in MANETs?

Developed for Wireline networks

Assumes all losses congestion related

Many TCP variants have been proposed

How good are they?
Are they sufficient?
Are there any other alternatives?
Are non-tcp protocols the solution?

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Our Goal
Identify the problems of TCP in MANETs.
Evaluate various major TCP variants.
12 TCP variants, 7 improvement techniques
Observations:
Most TCP variants are NOT sufficient.
A new transport layer protocol may be/is needed.

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TCP Basics
Byte Stream Delivery
Connection-Oriented: Two communicating TCP

entities (the sender and the receiver) must first

agree upon the willingness to communicate
Full-Duplex: TCP almost always operates in full-

duplex mode,

TCP exhibit asymmetric behavior only during connection

start and close sequences (i.e., data transfer in the
forward direction but not in the reverse, or vice versa)

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Reliable TCP Guarantees

A number of mechanisms help provide the guarantees:

Checksums: To detect errors with either the TCP header or data

Duplicate data detection: Discard duplicate copies of data that

has already been received

Retransmissions:
For lost and damaged data
Due to lack of positive acknowledgements
Timeout period calls for a retransmission

Sequencing: To deliver the byte stream data to an application in

order

Timers: Various static and dynamic timers used for deciding

when to retransmit

Window: For flow control in the form of a data

transmission window size

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Overview

Overview of TCP Concepts

Conventional TCP: Tahoe, Reno, New-Reno
Sending rate is controlled by
Congestion window (cwnd): limits the #
of packets in flight
Slow-start threshold (ssthresh): when
CA start
Loss detection
3 duplicate ACKs (faster, more
efficient)
Retransmission timer expires (slower,
less efficient)
Overview of congestion control mechanisms
Slow-start phase: cwnd start from 1
and increase exponentially
Congestion avoidance (CA): increase
linearly
Fast retransmit and fast recovery:
Trigger by 3 duplicate ACKs

Slow-start

Congestion
avoidance

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TCP Basics

Slow-start

Congestion
avoidance

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Congestion Control
Slow Start (SS): A mechanism to control the transmission rate)

When TCP connection starts (Initial Value): CWND =1,

congestion window increases by one segment for each
acknowledgement returned

Congestion Avoidance(CA): Used to reduce the transmission

rate
When Slow Start drops one or more packets due to
congestion

Fast Retransmit: Sender receiving triple duplicate ACKs

Immediate transmission of missing packet without waiting

for the Retransmission Timeout to expire

Fast Recovery: In SS or CA when sender receiving triple

duplicate ACKs Sender only enters Congestion Avoidance

mode

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Overview

What is Different in MANETs?

1.

Mobility

2.

High bit error rate

3.

Difficult to estimate time-out, RTT, bandwidth

Contention: packets compete for airtime

5.

Packets can be lost due to noise

Unpredictability/Variability

4.

Route stability and availability

Intra-flow and inter-flow contentions

Long connections have poor performance

More than 4 hops thruput drops dramatically

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Overview

Overview of Best Protocols

TCP-Westwood

[Casetti et. al.]

Estimate bandwidth to alleviate the effect of wireless errors.

TCP-Jersey [Xu et. al.]

Estimate bandwidth to alleviate the effect of wireless errors.

Congestion warning assists the determination of packet loss due to
wireless error from congestion.

ATP

[Sundaresan et. al.]

Rate based transmission, periodic rate feedback, no timeout concept,

reliability provided by SACK.

Split-TCP [Kopparty et. al.]

Separating congestion control from reliability.

Dropped packets are recovered from the most recent proxy instead of
the source.

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Why Does TCP Fail in MANETs?

Specific problems are identified:
1.
2.
3.
4.

TCP misinterprets route failures as congestion

TCP misinterprets wireless errors as congestion
Intra-flow and inter-flow contention reduce
throughput and fairness
Delay spike causes TCP to invoke unnecessary
retransmissions

5.

RTO too small unnecessary retransmissions.

Inefficiency due to the loss of retransmitted packet

When retransmitted packet is lost timer expires

performance drops

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Specific problems of TCP over MANETs

TCP in MANET
TCP misinterprets route failures as congestion

Effects: Reduce sending rate

Buffered packets (Data and ACKs) at intermediate
nodes are dropped.
Sender encounters timeout.

Under prolonged disconnection, a series of timeouts may be

encountered.

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Specific problems of TCP over MANETs

TCP in MANET
TCP misinterprets wireless errors as

congestion
Effects: Incorrect execution of congestion control
Performance drops.
Wireless channel is error-prone compared to wireline
Fading, interference, noise

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Specific problems of TCP over MANETs

TCP in MANET
Intra-flow and inter-flow contention
Effects: Increased delay, unpredictability, and unfairness.
Inter-flow contention: contention of nearby flows.
Intra-flow contention: between packets of the same flow (e.g.
forward data and reverse ACKs).
Wireline: only packet on same link compete
Wireless: all close by devices compete for the channel

Two nearby flows

Data stream
ACKs stream

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Drawback of TCP Exponential Back Off

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Impact of Partition on Throughput

A
B

Z
D

Link Failure
Data transfer continues
in spite of failure
No communication between the partitions

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Effects of Partitions on TCP

Node 5 moves away from node 3 (short-term partition)

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Reestablishing Path
5

6
4

The routing protocol reestablishes the path through node 6

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Long Term Partition

Node 5 moves away from node 3 (long-term partition)

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Long Term Network Partition

No communication between the partitions

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TCP Throughput
Larger the number of nodes a TCP connection needs to span, lower is
the end-to-end throughput, as there will be more medium contention
taking place in several regions of the network

TCP throughput is inversely proportional to the number of

hops

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Impact of Lower Layers on TCP -MAC

It is intended for providing an efficient shared broadcast

channel through which the involved mobile nodes can

communicate

In IEEE 802.11, RTS/CTS handshake is only employed when the DATA

packet size exceeds some predefined threshold

Each of these frames carries the remaining duration of time for the
transmission completion, so that other nodes in the vicinity can hear it
and postpone their transmissions

The nodes must await an IFS interval and then contend for the medium
again

The contention is carried out by means of a binary exponential backoff

mechanism which imposes a further random interval

At every unsuccessful attempt, this random interval tends to become

higher

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Impact of Lower Layers on TCP -MAC

Consider a linear topology in which each node can only communicate with its
adjacent neighbors
In addition, consider that in Figures (a) and (b) there exist a single TCP
connection running between nodes 1 and 5

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Capture Conditions

In Figure (c) where there are two independent connections,(connection 23) (connection 4-5)

Assuming that connection 2-3 experiences collision due to the hidden node
problem caused by the active connection 4-5 , node 2 will back off and
retransmit the lost frame

At every retransmission, the binary exponential backoff mechanism

imposes an increasingly backoff interval, and implicitly, this is actually
decreasing the possibility of success for the connection 2-3 to send a
packet as connection 4-5 will dominate the medium access once it has
lower backoff value

In consequence, the connection 2-3 will hardly obtain access to the

medium while connection 4-5 will capture it

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Network Layer Impact

Routing strategies play a key role on TCP

performance
There have been a lot of proposed

routing schemes and, typically, each of

them have different effects on the TCP
performance

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DSR
DSR protocol operates on an on-demand basis in which a

node wishing to find a new route broadcasts a RREQ packet

The problem with this approach concerns the high

probability of stale routes in environments where high

mobility as well as medium constraints may be normally
present

The problem is exacerbated by the fact that other nodes

can overhear the invalid route reply and populate their

buffers with stale route information

It can be mitigated by either manipulating TCP to tolerate

such a delay or by making the delay shorter so that the TCP

can deal with them smoothly

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Path Asymmetry Impact

In Ad hoc networks, there are several asymmetries
Loss Rate Asymmetry: It takes place when the backward

path is significantly more error prone than the forward

path

Bandwidth Asymmetry: Arises when forward and

backward data follow distinct paths with different

speeds

Can happen in ad hoc networks when all nodes not have the
same interface speed

Media Access Asymmetry: Arises when TCP ACKs and

Data are contending for the same

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Route Asymmetry
Route asymmetry implies having different paths in both

directions

Route asymmetry is associated with the possibility of

different transmission ranges for the nodes

The inconvenience with different transmission ranges is

that it can lead to conditions in which the forward data

follow a considerably shorter path than the backward data
(TCP ACK) or vice versa --> affecting hop counts and delays
(RTT)

Multi-hop paths are prone to have lower throughput and

TCP ACKs may face considerable disruptions

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Overview of Results
The best TCP variants:

TCP-Westwood and TCP-Jersey seem the best.

Both protocols estimate bandwidth more accurately.

TCP mechanisms:

Feedback from intermediate nodes leads to big gains.

The best non-TCP approaches:

Ad-hoc Transport Protocol (ATP) seems to address most issues

Non-window based: estimates achievable rate periodically

Split-TCP: promising new way of looking at transport layer

Dynamically buffer packets mid-path

Key: Separation of congestion control from reliability.

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TORA
TORA has been designed to be highly dynamic by

establishing routes quickly and concentrating control

messages within a small set of nodes close to the place
where the topological change has occurred

TORA makes use of directed acyclic graphs, where every

node has a path to a given destination and established

initially

This protocol can also suffer from stale route problem

similar to the DSR protocol

The problem occurs mainly because TORA does not

prioritize shorter paths, which can yield considerable

amount of out-of-sequence packets for the TCP receiver,
triggering retransmission of packets
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