New Reno and SACK TCP implemented in UMTS networks; A performance analysis

Universal Mobile Telecommunication System shortly UMTS is seen as the future mobile network. The use of the existing Transmission control protocol (TCP) as transport protocol in an UMTS environment is an understandable choice. TCP is the most commonly used transport protocol on the internet, and if it will be used as transport protocol in an UMTS environment, the UMTS devices will be compatible with today most used internet services such as mail and HTTP. To implement TCP in a third generation network such as UMTS there has been made several recommendations. In this paper the performances of two TCP variants are evaluated and compared, namely TCP New Reno and TCP SACK. When the results are analyzed there can be concluded that with the recommendations a positive performance difference is achieved. There can also be concluded that in most cases TCP SACK performs better than TCP New Reno.