Introducing feedback congestion control to a network with IEEE 802.11 wireless LAN

Abstract

The interpretation by transmission control protocol (TCP) of loss of linkage as loss due to congestion causes significant inefficiency in a wireless network. Congestion that often occurs in a wireless LAN results in further reduced performance. The paper introduces a method of controlling congestion in a network via a feedback mechanism called fair intelligent congestion control (FICC) which is useful for improving TCP performance in such a network. FICC overcomes the inefficiency of TCP in misinterpreting the link loss as congestion loss. Simulation testing has demonstrated that, by eliminating buffer overflows caused by congestion, FICC provides desirable fairness, reduces delay variation and improves effective throughput.