Licklider Transmission Protocol - Motivation
Stephen P. Farrell, Manikantan Ramadas, Scott C. Burleigh · RFC · 2008
This document describes the Licklider Transmission Protocol (LTP) designed to provide retransmission-based reliability over links characterized by extremely long message round-trip times (RTTs) and/or frequent interruptions in connectivity. Since communication across interplanetary space is the most prominent example of this sort of environment, LTP is principally aimed at supporting long- haul reliable transmission in interplanetary space, but it has applications in other environments as well. In an Interplanetary Internet setting deploying the Bundle protocol, LTP is intended to serve as a reliable convergence layer over single hop deep-space RF links. LTP does ARQ of data transmissions by soliciting selective-acknowledgment reception reports. It is stateful and has no negotiation or handshakes. This document is a product of the Delay Tolerant Networking Research Group and has been reviewed by that group. No objections to its publication as an RFC were raised.