Limitations of equation-based congestion control

ABSTRACT

We study limitations of an equation-based congestion control protocol, called TFRC (TCP Friendly Rate Control). It examines how the three main factors that determine TFRC throughput, namely, the TCP friendly equation, loss event rate estimation and delay estimation, can influence the long-term throughput imbalance between TFRC and TCP. Especially, we show that different sending rates of competing flows cause these flows to experience different loss event rates. There are several fundamental reasons why TFRC and TCP flows have different average sending rates, from the first place. Earlier work shows that the convexity of the TCP friendly equation used in TFRC causes the sending rate difference. We report two additional reasons in this paper: (1) the convexity of 1/x where x is a loss event period and (2) different RTO (retransmission timeout period) estimations of TCP and TFRC. These factors can be the reasons for TCP and TFRC to experience initially different sending rates. But we find that the loss event rate difference due to the differing sending rates greatly amplifies the initial throughput difference; in some extreme cases, TFRC uses around 20 times more, or sometimes 10 times less, bandwidth than TCP.

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INDEX TERMS

Primary Classification:
  C. Computer Systems Organization
  C.2 COMPUTER-COMMUNICATION NETWORKS

Additional Classification:
  C. Computer Systems Organization
  C.2 COMPUTER-COMMUNICATION NETWORKS
      C.2.1 Network Architecture and Design
          Subjects: Wireless communication
      C.2.2 Network Protocols
      C.2.3 Network Operations

Keywords:
congestion control, equation-based rate control