Transmission protocols for challenging networks: LTP and LTP-T

Challenging networks require transmission protocols able to deal with the specificities of the environment. These adverse conditions include very long delays (delays in hours are normal), episodic connectivity, asymmetric data rates, higher bit error rate (The raw BERs are in the order of 10-2), very high free space losses (around 250-300 dB) and power constraints that may severely compromise the effectiveness of standard transport protocols. Transmissions protocols must also relieve applications and other upper-layer protocols (like the bundle protocol from the Delay Tolerant Network architecture) from the need to deal with the characteristics of intervening communications networks and services. In this paper we analyse the impacts of parameters such as loss probability and propagation delay on Licklider Transmission Protocol (LTP) [1], [2] and the newly proposed Licklider Transmission Protocol-(LTP-T) [3] following a comparative study of both the protocols.