Advances in Computational Sciences and Technology

ISSN 0973-6107 Volume 10, Number 6 (2017) pp. 1715-1723

© Research India Publications
http://www.ripublication.com

TCP Congestion Control and Its Variants

Harjinder Kaur and Dr. Gurpreet Singh*

CSE, GZSCCET, MRSPTU, Dabwali Road, Bathinda, Punjab, India,
*Corresponding author

Abstract
Transmission Control Protocol provides reliability and end to end delivery of
packets in the network. TCP was designed to handle the congestion collapse
problem of the network. TCP has various improved versions, which were
created time to time as per necessities. In this paper we worked on different
TCP variants for instance TCP Reno, TCP New Reno, TCP SACK, TCP
FACK and TCP Vegas. We present a comparative analysis of TCP variants on
the basis of different parameters.
Keywords: Reno; NewReno; SACK; FACK; Vegas.

1. INTRODUCTION
TCP (Transmission Control Protocol) is mostly used Internet Protocol. The main
feature of TCP is that it can handle the congestion. When the packet sending rate is
increased than the receiving rate then congestion arises. TCP provides the reliable and
connection oriented network. To deals with congestion, TCP provides different
variants for example:- TCP Tahoe, TCP Reno, TCP New Reno, TCP Vegas, TCP
SACK, TCP FACK, TCP Asym, TCP RBP, Full TCP, CUBIC etc. In this paper we
work on a few of them using the NS-2. Network Simulator (NS-2) is used for research
and teaching that is evaluated in 1989. These variants basically used three algorithms,
slow start, congestion avoidance and Fast Retransmit. TCP Reno uses an additional
mechanism, fast recovery. It directly enters in congestion avoidance and skips the
slow start, because in fast recovery threshold value and the new congestion window
(CWND) is set as CWND= 1/ Current CWND.
TCP New Reno is an extension of the TCP Reno. It has the same features like Reno
1716 Harjinder Kaur and Dr. Gurpreet Singh

but it also has an advantage over Reno, it does not leave the fast recovery until the
acknowledgment (ACK) of all packets not received. TCP SACK provides selective
acknowledgment. SACK can detect multiple packet loss. TCP Vegas is mainly
focused on congestion avoidance rather than congestion detection. It introduced three
new mechanisms: - New Retransmit mechanism, congestion avoidance and modified
slow start. A very important variant known as TCP FACK is working on the top of
SACK options. FACK is modified version of SACK that comes with various new
features. Actually, all TCP variants work same, but they are used different mechanism
in congestion handling. We can say that the performances of TCP variants are
affected by its congestion control mechanism.

2. LITERATURE SURVEY
Md. Shohidul Islam et al: - In this research paper author discuss the “TCP Variants
and Network Parameters: A Comprehensive Performance Analysis”. This research
shows how TCP versions respond to various network parameters like propagation
delay, bandwidth, time to live, round trip time, rate of packets sending and so on. In
this authors select the best version of TCP in each parameter. Such analysis is helpful
in selecting the suitable TCP for certain criteria [10].
Yuvaraju B N and Dr. Niranjan N Chiplunkar: - This paper is on “Scenario Based
Performance Analysis of Variants of TCP Using NS2 – Simulator”. It evaluates the
performance of TCP Tahoe, TCP Reno, TCP New Reno, TCP SACK, TCP FACK
and TCP Vegas under different scenarios. After analyzing the performance this
research found that TCP Vegas is better than other TCP variants for sending data and
information [9].
Neha Bathla et al: -“Estimating Performance of TCP Alternatives in Wireless
Environment” this paper compares TCP variants on the basis of different parameters
using AODV routing protocol on NS-2. After obtaining results, it shown that TCP
Vegas have higher efficiency and better performance than other TCP variants [3].
Subramanya P et al: - This paper is on “Performance Evaluation of High Speed TCP
Variants in Dumbbell Network” and it uses dumbbells network for calculating the
performance of TCP variants. According to this paper the performance of TCP
variants depends on the congestion in the network and TCP New Reno performs very
well for congestion control [6] [18].
Abhishek Sawarkar and Himanshu Saraswat: - In this paper authors discuss
“Performance Analysis of TCP variants”. It contains the three experiments in terms of
throughput, latency and packet dropped ratio. In the first experiment TCP Vegas
performs best whenever apply T-test, variance, mean and simulation analysis.
According to second experiment when two flows use the same TCP variant both are
fair to each other. But when in different flows they, are not fair to each other in terms
of bandwidth utilization. In experiment three, uses the Droptail and RED to get better
TCP Congestion Control and Its Variants 1717

both throughput and latency because throughput increases whenever using Droptail
queuing algorithm and latency when the RED queuing algorithm uses [1].

3. TCP VARIANTS
3.1. TCP Reno
It was introduced in 1990 by Van Jacobson. It has the same features like TCP Tahoe.
We can also represent it as follows:-
TCP Tahoe + Fast Recovery = TCP Reno [5]

Fig.2. Behavior of TCP Reno

In TCP Reno when three duplicate packets are received, then it is the sign of
congestion. If congestion occurs, then TCP Reno retransmits the packets and enters a
new mechanism that is fast recovery. The following shows the algorithm for TCP
Reno:-
if (cwnd<ssthresh)
cwnd = cwnd + 1 # slow start
else if (cwnd>= ssthresh)
cwnd = cwnd + 1/cwnd# congestion avoidance
if (duplicate ACK)
If (duplicate ACK = = (1 || 2))
cwnd = ssthresh #packet delayed/ out-of-packet received
1718 Harjinder Kaur and Dr. Gurpreet Singh

ssthresh = cwnd/2
else (duplicate ACK > 2)
cwnd = cwnd + Number (ACK) # packet loss due to congestion
ssthresh = cwnd/2
The algorithm shows if cwnd (congestion window) is less than the threshold value
(that is represented using variable ssthresh) then congestion window is increment by
one otherwise it enters the slow start. As in algorithm shows if one or two
acknowledgments are received, then threshold value is set half of the congestion
window, but if more than two acknowledgments are received then it indicates the
congestion. For each duplicate acknowledgment received increase congestion window
by 1. TCP Reno has a limitation that, it can detect only single packet loss [2] [7].

3.2. TCP New Reno

TCP New Reno is the extension of TCP Reno. It has some advantages over TCP Reno
that can detect the multiple packet loss and it does not leave the fast recovery until it
receives acknowledgment of all packets, present in the window [15]. The fast
recovery phase proceeds as in TCP Reno, when a fresh acknowledgment is received
then there are two cases:-
(i) If it acknowledges all the packets which are outstanding when entered fast
recovery, then it exits fast recovery and set cwnd to ssthresh and still continues
congestion avoidance.
(ii) If the acknowledgment is an incomplete acknowledgement, then it deduces that
the next packet in line was lost and it retransmits that packet and sets the number
of duplicate acknowledgment received on 0 [14].
We have some advantages of TCP New Reno these are given below:-
 It can detect multiple packet loss.
 Its congestion avoidance mechanism is very efficient and utilizes network
resources much more efficiently.
 TCP New Reno has few retransmits because of its modified congestion
avoidance and slow start.

3.3. TCP SACK

TCP SACK or selective acknowledgement requires that packets should acknowledge
selectively. It is an option enabling a receiver to tell the sender the range of non-
contiguous packets received. Without SACK, the receiver can only tell the sender
about sequentially received packets. The sender uses this information to retransmit
TCP Congestion Control and Its Variants 1719

selectively only the lost packets. It uses a variable pipe to store outstanding data in the
network, which is absent in TCP Reno and New Reno [13] [16]. When pipe < cwnd,
then it sends data and Set pipe = pipe + 1. However, when the sender receives an
acknowledgement from receiver then set pipe = pipe – 1. In this manner, the sender
transmits all of the outstanding data in the network. When all the outstanding packets
are acknowledged, then SACK exits fast recovery and enters next phase that is
congestion avoidance.

Fig.3. Selectively acknowledge packets

3.4. TCP FACK

The development of TCP SACK with Forward Acknowledgement is called TCP
FACK. It has some extra features over TCP SACK, to estimate the amount of data
transmit it uses SACK options very efficiently and it also introduces a better way to ½
the window when congestion is detected. The goal of FACK is to perform precise
congestion control and improve connection throughput during the recovery phase [8]
[12].
1720 Harjinder Kaur and Dr. Gurpreet Singh

3.5. TCP Vegas

According to above mentioned research papers TCP Vegas is better than the other
TCP variants. Like Reno, Vegas uses triple duplicate acknowledgments always result
in packet retransmission. TCP Vegas introduced a new retransmission mechanism for
lost packets. It uses fine-grained round trip time measurements for a compute timeout
period of each packet [14]. If the timeout period of the oldest unacknowledgement
packets has expired then, packet is retransmitted. Fine-grain timeouts enables faster
detection of packet losses and recovery from multiple drops without restarting the
slow start phase if the retransmission timer does not expire before. Thus, it solves the
problem of multiple packet drops in the same window that we faced in TCP Reno.
TCP Vegas also provide modified slow start and congestion avoidance. The original
slow start and congestion avoidance need packet losses to realize the congestion, but
the modified slow start finds the correct window size without incurring a loss. It
happens when Vegas exponentially increasing its window at every other round trip
time. It leaves the slow start and enters in the congestion avoidance phase when the
actual throughput is lower than the expected throughput [11] [17].

Fig.4. Congestion avoidance in TCP Vegas

TCP Congestion Control and Its Variants 1721

4. TCP VARIANT COMPARISON STUDY

TCP variants will be effective based on the parameters that are to be taken into the
consideration. The following table shows the comparison of Reno, NewReno, SACK,
FACK and Vegas:-

Table 1. Comparative study of different TCP Variant

TCP variants→
Reno NewReno SACK FACK Vegas
Parameters ↓
Modified
Slow Start Yes Yes Yes Yes
version
Congestion Modified
Yes Yes Yes Yes
Avoidance version
Fast Retransmit Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes
Modified Modified Modified
Fast Recovery Yes Yes
version version version
Retransmit A new
Simple Simple Simple Simple
Mechanism mechanism
Congestion Control A new
Simple Simple Simple Simple
Mechanism mechanism
Selective
Acknowledgement No No Yes No No
mechanism
Forward
Acknowledgement No No No Yes No
mechanism
Type of ACK Immediate Immediate Immediate Immediate Immediate
Detection of packet A single Multiple packet Multiple Multiple Multiple
loss packet loss loss packet loss packet loss packet loss
It has the May not avoid
problem that unnecessary
Do not have
implements inflation of
Can’t handle Take one RTT any
the selective congestion
Problem multiple for detecting mechanism
acknowledgem window
packet loss packet loss for re-
ent is a very through delay
routing
difficult task. sensing
technique

5. CONCLUSION
In this paper, we discuss the five basic TCP variants; these are TCP Reno, TCP
NewReno, TCP FACK, TCP SACK and TCP Vegas. Every variant has a different
mechanism to handle the congestion. There is no single variant that can completely
1722 Harjinder Kaur and Dr. Gurpreet Singh

overcome the problem to congested and unreliable nature of the network. All variants
have their own advantages and disadvantages to solve the network problem of TCP
protocol.

REFERENCES
[1] Sawarkar, A. and Saraswat, H., 2016, “Performance Analysis of TCP
Variants”, International Journal of Computer Science and Network Security,
vol. 16, pp. 102-106.
[2] Kamboj, R and Singh, G., 2015, “Various TCP Options for Congestion
Evasion”, International Journal of Advanced Research in Computer
Engineering & Technology (IJARCET). Vol. 4(4), pp. 1534-1539.
[3] Bathla, N., Kaur, A. and Singh, G., 2014,“Estimating Performance of TCP
Alternatives in Wireless Environment”, National Conference on Cloud
Computing & Big Data, vol. 4, pp. 1-12.
[4] Chhabra, A., Dhiman, A. and Joshi, M., 2014, “Performance Evaluation of
Variants of TCP Based on Buffer Management over WiMAX”, International
Journal of Computer Science & Communication Networks, vol. 4, pp. 67-75.
[5] Miyani, H. V., Kukadiya, V. B., Raviya, K. S. and Sheth, D., 2014,
“Performance Based Comparison Of Tcp Variants ‘Tahoe, Reno, Newreno,
Sack’ In Ns2 Using Linux Platform”, Journal Of Information, Knowledge And
Research In Electronics And Communication, vol. 3, pp. 998-1000.
[6] Bathla, N., Kaur, A. and Singh, G., 2014, "Relative Inspection of TCP Variants
Reno, New Reno, Sack, Vegas in AODV", International Journal of Research in
Engineering and Applied Sciences, Vol. 4, Iss 5, pp. 1-12.
[7] Zafar, F., Mahmood, Z., Ayoub, O. M. and Zhao, Z., 2012, “Throughput
Analysis of TCP SACK in comparison to TCP Tahoe, Reno, and New Reno
against Constant Rate Assignment (CRA) of 2500 and 4500 bps”, Journal of
Computer Science & Computational Mathematics, vol. 2, pp. 35- 41.
[8] Bhatia, K. and Valanjoo, A., 2011, “Progress of Different TCP
Variant”,Journal of Engineering Sciences & Research Technology, vol.11, pp.
3843- 3848.
[9] Yuvaraju, B. N. and Dr. Chiplunkar,N. N., 2010, “Scenario Based Performance
Analysis of Variants of TCP Using NS2 – Simulator”, International Journal of
Computer Applications, vol. 4, pp.20-24.
[10] Islam, M. S., Kashem, M.A., Sadid, W. H., Rahman, M. A., Islam, M. N. and
Anam, S., 2009, “TCP Variants and Network Parameters: A Comprehensive
Performance Analysis”, Proceedings of the International MultiConference of
Engineers and Computer Scientists, vol. 1, pp. 978-988.
[11] Singh, G., Kumar, D. and Kaur, A., 2009, “Simulation based comparison of
performance metrics for various TCP extensions using NS-2”, IEEE Sponsored
TCP Congestion Control and Its Variants 1723

International Conference on Innovative Technologies, vol. 9, pp. 106-110.

[12] Ho, C. Y., Chen, Y. - C., Chan, Y. - C. and Ho, C. - Y., 2008, “Fast retransmit
and fast recovery schemes of transport protocols: A survey and taxonomy”,
Science direct, vol. 52, pp. 1308–1327.
[13] Jamal, H. and Sultan, K., 2008, “Performance Analysis of TCP Congestion
Control Algorithms”, International Journal of Computers and
Communications, vol. 2, pp. 30-38.
[14] Low, S. H., Peterson, L. and Wang, L., 2002, “Understanding TCP Vegas: A
Duality Model”, Journal of the ACM, vol. 49(2), pp. 207-235.
[15] Fahmy, S.; Karwa, T.P. (2001): TCP congestion control: Overview and survey
of ongoing research. Computer Science Technical Reports, vol. 11, pp. 1-12.
[16] Kaur, A., Singh, G. and Chauhan D., 2011, "Radical Analysis of TCP
Alternatives: Tahoe, New Reno, Sack, Vegas on the basis of imitation in NS-
2", Yamuna Journal of Technology and Management, Vol 1, Issue 1, pp. 41-
46.
[17] Sharma S., Singh, G. and Kaur, A., 2014, "Study Based Comparison of Multi-
Path Routing Protocols in MANETs", International Conference on Futuristic
Trends in Engineering & Management, pp. 191-196.
[18] Subramanya, P., Vinayaka K. S., Gururaj, H. L. and Ramesh B., 2014,
“Performance Evaluation of High Speed TCP Variants in Dumbbell Network”,
Journal of Computer Engineering, vol. 16, pp. 49-53.
1724 Harjinder Kaur and Dr. Gurpreet Singh