A new method to improve the performance of TCP SACK over wireless links

In this paper, a new method to improve TCP SACK's performance over wireless links is presented. The proposed method attempts to differentiate congestion and corruption loss by the use of tagged segments. Whenever a congestion loss occurs at a router, a tagged segment is dropped at the router and a notification is generated. Loss of the tagged segment is eventually detected by the TCP to serve an indication of congestion. When the tagged segment is not lost due to congestion, its survival then further serves as a trial signal for the TCP to detect corruption loss. Contrasting to most existing approaches employing explicit notification, our method is attractive in that it requires no modification to the receiving end. Simulation results show that our method significantly improves the performance of TCP SACK over both low and long delay noisy links.