Reliable data transmission over a wireless multi-hop network, called the ad hoc network, has proven to be non-trivial. The TCP (transmission control protocol), a widely used end-to-end reliable transport protocol in a wired network, is not entirely suitable when applied to a wireless ad hoc network due to TCP's congestion control schemes. In particular, the TCP at the source considers the network as congested when detecting packet losses or timeouts. However, in a wireless ad hoc network when a route disconnection occurs because of node movement, the network mistakes this as a congestion. Therefore, the conventional TCP congestion control mechanism cannot be applied, because a route disconnection must be handled differently from a network congestion. We propose a new mechanism that improves the TCP performance in a wireless ad hoc network where each node can buffer packets during a route disconnection and reestablishment. Additionally, we incorporate new measures to deal with the reliable transmission of important control messages. Our simulation results further confirmed these advantages.
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