[Bloat] sigcomm wifi

[David Lang]

On Sat, 23 Aug 2014, Hal Murray wrote:

>>> Yep... I remember a neat paper from colleagues at Trento University that
>>> piggybacked TCP's ACKs on link layer ACKs, thereby avoiding the collisions
>>> between TCP's ACKs and other data packets - really nice. Not sure if it
>>> wasn't just simulations, though.
>
>> that's a neat hack, but I don't see it working, except when one end of the
>> wireless link is also the endpoint of the TCP connection (and then only for
>> acks  from that device)
>
> That could be generalized to piggybacking any handy small packet onto the
> link layer ACK.
>
> Of course, then you have to send back a link layer ACK for the extra info.
> Does that converge?

if you aren't talking between the two endpoints of the wireless connection, 
probably :-)

but fairness would be an issue for something like this. what constitues a 'small 
amount of data' to try and piggyback, and what happens if you are talking 
between endpoints, are the two allowed to monopolize the airtime?

but backing up a step, finding airtime for the ack is just as hard as finding 
airtime for the next transmission.

David Lang