Comparison between TCP scheduling strategies in IEEE 802.11ac based wireless networks

In this paper we investigate two models for traffic transmission of two Transmission Control Protocol (TCP) connections with one connection in Uplink direction and the other in Downlink direction, between an Access Point and a station over an IEEE 802.11ac channel. In one model the traffic of the two connections is mapped to a single Traffic Stream, and in the second model the traffic of the two TCP connections is split into two different Traffic Streams. We assume Error-Free and Error-Prone channels, the Two-Level aggregation method and the Reverse Direction capability of IEEE 802.11ac. The Goodput of the two models is about the same, however, in the first model shorter dedicated transmission periods, denoted Transmission Opportunities (TXOP), are sufficient to achieve the optimal Goodput because TCP Acks are interleaved. Also, using Reverse Direction prevents collisions and improves the Goodput by 10−15% over contension based access.