The Effect of the RTS/CTS Handshake on TCP

Abstract

Previous research enquiries into TCP performance in MANETs have largely assumed that the 802.11 RTS/CTS mechanism remains in full effect throughout the connection time. In this work we evaluate the effects on TCP goodput of utilising other modes of operation for the 802.11 handshake whilst remaining compliant with the original specification. To identify the source of the goodput discrepancies amongst the different modes of operation we introduce two new metrics to characterise spatial connection along a TCP connection and then use them to account for TCP goodput in string and mesh topologies when using different RTS/CTS strategies.