Cross-layer error recovery in wireless access networks: The ARQ proxy approach

Wireless networks are being increasingly employed to provide mobile access to network services. In most existing standards, reliable transmission on the wireless medium is achieved through the introduction of ARQ schemes at MAC layer, a strategy which is also employed by TCP for reliable end-to-end data delivery. The paper proposes an approach to overcome the performance degradation deriving from the duplicate ARQ strategies implemented at the transport and MAC layers by introducing a cross-layer solution to reduce un-necessary transmissions on the wireless medium. Furthermore, the paper describes how the proposed scheme, called ARQ Proxy, can be deployed in three different wireless technologies (3G Long-Term Evolution, Wi-Fi, and WiMAX) and provides extensive validation of the achievable improvement through simulations.