PROPER: A PROxy pair for uplink PERformance enhancement in wireless access networks

Mobile end-users cannot utilize high upload bandwidths available in wireless access networks since wireless link based packet losses dramatically degrade TCP performance. We propose a TCP performance enhancing proxy pair called PROPER that detects wireless-based packet losses early and prevents TCP performance degradation. PROPER is transparent to TCP and requires no modifications on either TCP sender or TCP receiver. PROPER works in harmony with various TCP variants such as Reno, CUBIC, Veno and BBR. Netem-based performance and fairness emulation tests show that PROPER not only prevents TCP performance degradation on wireless access networks but also can safely coexist with regular TCP traffic.