Spacenet TCP Accelerator

Spacenet's patented TCP accelerator provides improved speed and performance of nearly all IP applications over satellite links. By using the built-in data integrity checks across the satellite link, Spacenet can circumvent the redudant TCP acknowledgement scheme and provide accelerated bi-directional communications.

Using TCP acceleration, a typical data transaction is handled in an optimized fashion:

1. A PC at a Spacenet VSAT site requests a file. The request is forwarded from the PC to local VSAT, which in turn sends the request via satellite to the Spacenet hub facility.

2. The Spacenet hub facility intercepts the request and begins a TCP dialog with the host PC containing the file requested.

3. As the TCP at the host PC begins delivering content to the Spacenet hub facility, the hub takes care of sending all the acknowledgments back to the host PC, while forwarding all the content packets to the remote PC as they are received. Because the hub’s connection to the Internet/content server is so robust, the host PC is able to ramp up its TCP delivery speed (usually referred to as the “TCP window”) at a much faster rate than would otherwise be possible with a standard, multiple-hop telephone connection.

4. At the remote side of the connection, the PC sends its TCP receipt acknowledgments out to the VSAT, which terminates them locally. Only in the case of data delivery problems are any TCP acknowledgement packets exchanged across the satellite link. If no data delivery errors occur, no acknowledgments are sent back over the satellite link until the file transfer is complete and the original file has been reassembled at the remote PC.

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