Counting Protocols for Reliable End-to-End Transmission

摘要

We present and analyze the performance of two newcounting protocols. Counting protocols use bounded headers yet provide a reliable FIFO channel in a computer network in which packets may be lost or delivered out of order. Using the classic alternating bit protocol as a basis, we derive two counting protocols: (i) theone-bit protocolwhich uses one bit headers and sends one packet per message under ideal conditions, but performs extremely poorly in networks with realistic loss rates and (ii) themode protocolwhich uses multiple-bit headers and whose performance improves as more bits are used in the header.