The impact of delayed acknowledgments on TCP performance over satellite links

Abstract

The performance of the Transmission Control Protocol (TCP) overnetwork paths that include a wireless or a satellite link is a veryactive area of research. A number of papers have been publishedproposing different ways to improve TCP over these kinds of links,either by new TCP functionality, or by link level enhancements.Very few of these papers consider the delayed acknowledgmentstrategy that is implemented by many TCP receivers, when presentingtheir results. In this paper we will show that this acknowledgmentstrategy can have a significant impact on the performance of TCPand should not be neglected when evaluating new solutions forwireless environments.