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Protocol enhancements for intermittently connected hosts

Published: 01 July 2005 Publication History
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  • Abstract

    Internet users are increasingly mobile. Their hosts are often only intermittently connected to the Internet, due to using multiple access networks, gaps in wireless coverage or explicit user choice. When such hosts communicate using the current Internet protocols, intermittent connectivity can significantly decrease performance and even cause connections to fail altogether. This paper experimentally measures the behavior of Internet communication across a dynamically changing, intermittently connected path. An analysis of the experimental results finds that address changes together with transport-layer timeout and retransmission behaviors are the main limiting factors. Based on these experimental results, this paper proposes a solution that combines the Host Identity Protocol (HIP) with two new protocol enhancements, the TCP User Timeout Option and the TCP Retransmission Trigger. Detailed experiments with HIP and a prototype implementation of these protocol enhancements show that they tolerate address changes and arbitrary-length disconnections while significantly increasing performance under intermittent connectivity to within 86-96% of a scenario with constant connectivity.

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        Published In

        cover image ACM SIGCOMM Computer Communication Review
        ACM SIGCOMM Computer Communication Review  Volume 35, Issue 3
        July 2005
        90 pages
        ISSN:0146-4833
        DOI:10.1145/1070873
        Issue’s Table of Contents

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        Association for Computing Machinery

        New York, NY, United States

        Publication History

        Published: 01 July 2005
        Published in SIGCOMM-CCR Volume 35, Issue 3

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        Author Tags

        1. communication system performance
        2. disruption tolerance
        3. intermittent connectivity
        4. internet
        5. mobile communication
        6. transport protocols

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