Equation-based end-to-end single-rate multicast congestion control

Abstract

Among the recently proposed single-rate multicast congestion control protocols is transmission control protocol-friendly multicast congestion control (TFMCC; Widmer and Handley 2001; Floyd et al. 2000; Widmer et al. IEEE Netw 15:28–37, 2001), which is an equation-based single-rate protocol that extends the mechanisms of the unicast TCP-friendly rate control (TFRC) protocol into the multicast domain. In TFMCC, each receiver estimates its throughput using an equation that estimates the steady-state throughput of a TCP source. The source then adjusts its sending rate according to the slowest receiver within the session (a.k.a., current-limiting receiver, CLR). TFMCC is a relatively simple, scalable, and TCP-friendly multicast congestion control protocol. However, TFMCC is hindering its throughput performance by adopting an equation derived from the unicast TFRC protocol. Further, TFMCC is slow to react to congestion conditions that usually result in a change of the CLR. This paper is motivated by these two observations and proposes an improved version of TFMCC, which we refer to as hybrid-TFMCC (or H-TFMCC for short). First, each receiver estimates its throughput using an equation that models the steady-state throughput of a multicast source controlled according to the additive increase multiplicative decrease (AIMD) approach. The second modification consists of adopting a hybrid sender/receiver-based rate control strategy, where the sending rate can be adjusted by the source or initiated by the current or a new CLR. The source monitors RTT variations on the CLR path, in order to rapidly adjust the sending rate to network conditions. Simulation results show that these modifications result in remarkable performance improvement with respect to throughput, time to react, and magnitude of oscillations. We also show that H-TFMCC remains TCP-friendly and achieves a higher fairness index than that achieved by TFMCC.