Transport Protocols: A Survey of Different Schemes for Internet Congestion Control

Abstract

Transmission Control Protocol and User Datagram Protocol (UDP) are the key network standards and technologies used over Internet Protocols (IP) for the global Internet communication. The idea of Internet ubiquitous assumes that an Internet access should be available even in remote rural locations lacking network infrastructure. In this case satellite access represents an attractive solution. Nevertheless, experience shows that over satellite and wireless links, Transmission control Protocol (TCP) is limited in terms of capacity underutilisation due to high bandwidth-delay product (BDP). Several enhanced versions were proposed as solutions. For instance, tuning TCP parameters have been proposed to avoid the underutilization of high-capacity and wireless links with high BDP. These topics have been often addressed, but considering recent high speed TCP variants, the evolution of end users’ habits, and recently proposed satellite link access scheme, a new study is necessary to reconsider some preconceptions and previous recommendations in such a context. This paper review some of the TCP variants and a survey commonly proposed enhanced solutions for standard TCP and User datagram Protocol (UDP) over the Internet Protocol (IP).