Technology

Enhanced Flow Rate Signaling

The Anagran FR-1000 supports an optional, advanced in-band QoS signaling protocol known in the Telecommunications Industry Association as TIA 1039. This protocol, which adds a small amount of extra information within each TCP header, allows a "sender" (content source) to communicate what rate it can send traffic over an impending TCP connection, and also allows the requestor to either accept that rate if it can, or request a lower rate more appropriate to the device. For example, a cell phone is able to receive at a much lower rate than a home PC on a broadband connection. Ideal for satellite or "lossy" wireless links, TIA 1039 allows complete bypass of the standard TCP slow start process which can make data transfers over links with high bit error rates nearly impossible. In some cases TIA 1039 can speed up TCP performance by a factor of 100:1 or more. So for very long distance or "lossy" TCP connections this optional in-band signaling can further augment the already powerful capabilities of the FR-1000.

TIA 1039 runs completely in-band and supports guaranteed rate, Call Acceptance Control (CAC) and preference. It includes TCP rate feedback which greatly improves Web access speed, making web page retrieval at least ten times faster than what it is today.

More information on the QoS signaling concept is available from the article by Lawrence Roberts (Anagran) "MAJOR IMPROVEMENTS IN TCP PERFORMANCE OVER SATELLITE AND RADIO".