On Improving TCP Performance over Mobile Data Networks
Ke Liu, Jack Y. B. Lee · IEEE Transactions on Mobile Computing · 2015
Mobile data networks such as 3G and LTE exhibit properties that are fundamentally different from those of fixed networks. These differences result in severe performance bottlenecks in current Transmission Control Protocol (TCP) implementations, which are the foundation for most of today's mobile applications. This work addresses this challenge by developing a transparent protocol optimization device to perform on-the-fly protocol optimization to improve TCP's throughput performance while maintaining full compatibility with current end-host TCP implementations. The proposed protocol optimizations can achieve near optimal bandwidth utilization. This was verified and confirmed in production 3G and LTE networks using a prototype implementation. Compared to current TCP implementations, the proposed protocol optimization device can raise throughput by 48 to 163 percent. In contrast to inventing a new transport protocol or modifying an existing TCP implementation, the proposed approach does not require any modification to the existing TCP implementation at the client/server hosts, does not require any reconfiguration of the server or client, and hence can be readily deployed in today's 3G and 4G mobile networks, raising the throughput performance of all existing network applications running atop TCP.