Session Level Techniques for Improving Web Browsing Performance on Wireless Links

HTTP transfers require multiple TCP connections and DNS lookups before a HTTP page can be displayed. Each TCP connection requires several RTTs to fully open the TCP send window and each DNS lookup requires several RTTs before resolving the domain name to IP mapping. These TCP/DNS RTTs significantly degrade the performance of HTTP over wireless links. To overcome these problems, we have developed session level optimization techniques to enhance HTTP download mechanisms. These techniques (a) minimize the number of DNS lookups over the wireless link and (b) minimize the number of TCP connections opened by the browser. These optimizations bridge the mismatch caused by wireless links between application-level protocols (such as HTTP) and transport-level protocols (such as TCP). Our solutions do not require any client-side software and can be deployed transparently on a service provider network to provide 30-50% decrease in end-to-end user perceived latency and 50-100% increase in data throughput across wireless links for HTTP sessions.