Efficiency of Congestion Control within TCP protocol variants

Abstract

The Transmission Control Protocol (TCP) sees widespread use in modern networking. Its features, such as correction, synchronization, acknowledgement responses allow for simple, seamless network communication between many interconnected computers. As network bandwidth capacity increased, the original TCP standard struggled to maintain reliability with heavy packet overloads. Hence, congestion control algorithms became a mainstream focus during future technical updates of the TCP standard. This paper explores the importance of congestion control algorithms in a multitude of TCP protocol variants and examines their performance using data from physical hardware simulation. With TCP Tahoe, Reno, NewReno and Vegas being the main subjects, by simulating two devices communicating using the TCP protocol, this method reveals that TCP Vegas outperforms the others in terms of reliability, throughput and latency. Having an increase of data transfer capacity as the main goals of technological innovation in the field of networking, the findings of this investigation illustrate the importance of a context-aware system under an environment with strict and rigorous requirements.