Channel delay impact on TCP and SCPS-TP over LEO/GEO-stationary space links

Abstract

A substantially long round trip time (RTT) in space channel hurts TCP interactions between the sending and receiving sides, and limits the usefulness and effectiveness of TCP feedback from the remote endpoint for space communications. Space communication protocol standards-transport protocol (SCPS-TP) is a set of extensions to transmission control protocol (TCP) aimed at improving TCP performance in space communications. Some work has been done on performance comparison between SCPS-TP and the widely used TCP. It is expected to have an evaluation of SCPS-TP in coping with long channel delay which is one of the primary features in space communications. This paper describes an experimental evaluation of channel delay impact on throughput performance of SCPS-TP over LEO/GEO-stationary space links using a test-bed, by comparing it with the widely used TCP