TCP Acknowledgement Compression for Fairness Among Uplink TCP Flows in IEEE 802.11n WLANs

This paper deals with the problem of unfairness among uplink TCP (Transmission Control Protocol) flows associated with frame aggregation employed in IEEE 802.11n WLANs (Wireless Local Area Networks). When multiple stations have uplink TCP flows and transmit TCP data packets to an AP (Access Point), the AP has to compete for channel access with stations for the transmission of TCP ACK (acknowledgement) packets to the stations. Due to this contention-based channel access, TCP ACKs tend to be accumulated in the AP's downlink buffer. We show that the frame aggregation in the MAC (Medium Access Control) layer increases TCP ACK losses in the AP and leads to the serious unfair operation of TCP congestion control. To resolve this problem, we propose the TAC (TCP ACK Compression) mechanism operating at the top of the AP's interface queue. By exploiting the properties of cumulative TCP ACK and frame aggregation, TAC serves only the representative TCP ACK without serving redundant TCP ACKs. Therefore, TAC reduces queue occupancy and prevents ACK losses due to buffer overflow, which significantly contributes to fairness among uplink TCP flows. Also, TAC enhances the channel efficiency by not transmitting unnecessary TCP ACKs. The simulation results show that TAC tightly assures fairness under various network conditions while increasing the aggregate throughput, compared to the existing schemes.