[e2e] 10% packet loss stops TCP flow

[Noel Chiappa]

    > From: Jonathan Stone <jonathan at dsg.stanford.edu>

    >> T retransmissions .. given that it has N total segments to transmit,
    >> .. Pc = f(Pp, T, N), where Pc is the probability of the successful
    >> completion of the tranmssion, and Pp is the probability of the loss of
    >> any individual packet.

    > Are you deliberately tempting your readers to fall into the fallacy of
    > assuming packet loss is statistically independent, and thus of assuming
    > Poisson behaviour of packets in the Internet?

Well, it depends on what's causing the packet loss, doesn't it? E.g. if it's
congestion, yes there is a chance it will be non-random (although it will
depend on what drop algorithm the switches/routers are using). However, if
it's a lossy radio link, it might be fairly well random.

May I also note that Pc calculated by the simplistic formula I point toward is
actually something of an *upper* bound, and any deviation away from perfect
randomness in packet dropping will *reduce* it. (If the losses are not evenly
randomly distributed, then the probability of the loss of the T retransmission
of a given packet needed to kill the connection is even *higher* than the Pp^T
you get with a random model, no?)

	Noel