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BCP28 - Enhancing TCP Over Satellite Channels using Standard Mechanisms

Network Working Group M. Allman Request for Comments: 2488 NASA Lewis/Sterling Software BCP: 28 D. Glover Category: Best Current Practice NASA Lewis L. Sanchez BBN January 1999 Enhancing TCP Over Satellite Channels using Standard Mechanisms Status of this Memo This document specifies an Internet Best Current Practices for the Internet Community, and requests discussion and suggestions for improvements. Distribution of this memo is unlimited. Copyright Notice Copyright (C) The Internet Society (1999). All Rights Reserved. Abstract The Transmission Control Protocol (TCP) provides reliable delivery of data across any network path, including network paths containing satellite channels. While TCP works over satellite channels there are several IETF standardized mechanisms that enable TCP to more effectively utilize the available capacity of the network path. This document outlines some of these TCP mitigations. At this time, all mitigations discussed in this document are IETF standards track mechanisms (or are compliant with IETF standards). 1. Introduction Satellite channel characteristics may have an effect on the way transport protocols, such as the Transmission Control Protocol (TCP) [Pos81], behave. When protocols, such as TCP, perform poorly, channel utilization is low. While the performance of a transport protocol is important, it is not the only consideration when constructing a network containing satellite links. For example, data link protocol, application protocol, router buffer size, queueing discipline and proxy location are some of the considerations that must be taken into account. However, this document focuses on improving TCP in the satellite environment and non-TCP considerations are left for another document. Finally, there have been many satellite mitigations proposed and studied by the research community. While these mitigations may prove useful and safe for shared networks in the future, this document only considers TCP mechanisms which are Allman, et. al. Best Current Practice [Page 1] RFC 2488

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