A Cross-Layer Retransmission Control for Improving TCP Performance in Wireless LAN

Abstract

In this paper we propose a cross-layer retransmission control for TCP communication over a wireless link. With our proposed control, a retransmission delay for lost packet is reduced, packet losses in the wireless link are eliminated and all packets are delivered in the correct order. No change is required to TCP itself or to the sender. Our proposed method is implemented in a queue between the media access control (MAC) layer and logical link layer in a base station, and is designed to assist local retransmission control in the MAC layer. Computer simulations show that our proposed method can maximally use the bandwidth of the wireless link under high bit error rates conditions with conventional TCP control. The fairness problem of TCP communication between connections with different bit error rates in a wireless link is also improved, and MAC level fairness is also controllable.