Analysis of packet loss in transport layer over ATM networks

Abstract

In ATM networks, when cells are lost due to congestion, packets containing the lost cells should be retransmitted in the transport layer, which manages the end-to-end communication. The probability that a packet contains at least one lost cell depends on the packet length. It is thus very likely that the performance of the end-to-end communication is influenced by the packet length. In this paper, we analyze the packet loss probability and the maximum achievable throughput when a block of data is divided into packets of fixed size and the lost packets are retransmitted based on the selective repeat ARQ. Through the analysis, we examine the effect of the packet length and the peak cell transmission rate on the performance measures.