Improving wireless Snoop performance using fake ACK technique

Abstract

Because of the burgeoning increase in data communication and multimedia services over wireless links, many approaches have been undertaken to find effective integrated protocols that satisfy these demands. One of them is the Snoop protocol that uses buffers at base stations to cache and copy packets passing in both directions and to retransmit lost packets locally, therefore avoiding congestion control mechanisms. Snoop was originally proposed by the University of California at Berkeley for improving the performance of TCP over wired and wireless LANs. In this paper we modified the snoop ACK procedure using a fake ACK technique to improve its performance. This technique avoids end-to-end waiting time for lost packets and TCP slow start initiation at the source, resulting in more efficient utilisation of network resources. Simulation results show that using this fake ACK technique leads to improved throughput and a decreased number of dropped packets compared to the original Snoop.