TCP/IP Performance over 3G Wireless Links with Rate and Delay Variation

In this paper, we comprehensively evaluate the impact of variable rate and variable delay on long-lived TCP performance. We propose a model to explain and predict TCP's throughput over a link with variable rate and/or delay. We also propose a network-based solution called Ack Regulator that mitigates the effect of variable rate and/or delay without significantly increasing the round trip time, while improving TCP performance by 5-50%.