[e2e] 10% packet loss stops TCP flow

[Sireen Habib Malik]

Hi,

......sorry to be trivial but please correct me if i think the 
expression should be (w^2)*p=2.25.

I would have worked out the answer the same way but through the above 
expression.

thanks for the clarification.

--
Sireen Malik

Christian Huitema wrote:

>>There is another very simple way to look at it. The most
>>"optimistic" model of TCP, that only looks at congestion
>>avoidance (AIMD) and ignores slow start, timeouts etc., predicts
>>the following relationship between the average window size (w)
>>and loss probability (p):
>>
>>	(w^2)*p = 2
>>
>>Note that this is _independent_ of link bandwidth and RTT. So
>>with a loss probability of 10%, the average window size is going
>>to be of the order 4. If you factor in other protocol details,
>>the number will be even smaller. With a window size of 4 or
>>below, fast recovery will not work and any loss will lead to a
>>timeout (for the average connection). Hence loss rates of the
>>order 10% simply will not work, irrespective of RTT/link bandwidth.
>>    
>>
>
>The formula (w^2)*p = 2 assumes a connection in "congestion avoidance"
>mode, which is not actually the case if the loss rate is high. If the
>loss rate is high, the connection will be very often in "slow start"
>mode, where the approximation is "w*p = 2". If the loss rate is still
>higher, we move to "w=1", and the adaptation comes from increasing the
>RTT.  
>
>The classic rule of thumb is that a link exhibiting more than 1% packet
>loss is considered broken.
>
>By the way, Noel's challenge points to an interesting point. Long
>transfers are more likely to break than short transfers. If we want to
>actually transfer large files over poor quality networks, we cannot rely
>on TCP alone, but we have to split them in small chunks. Much like what
>BitTorrent does...
>
>-- Christian Huitema
>  
>


-- 

Sireen Malik, M.Sc.
PhD. Candidate,

Communication Networks
Hamburg University of  Technology,
FSP 4-06 (room 3008)
Denickestr. 17
21073 Hamburg, Deutschland

Tel: +49 (40) 42-878-3387
Fax: +49 (40) 42-878-2941
E-Mail: s.malik at tuhh.de

--Everything should be as simple as possible, but no simpler (Albert Einstein)