Revisiting Loss Detection in NDN: Detecting Spurious Timeout using Probe Interest

In Named Data Networking (NDN), consumers can retrieve content from anywhere in the network, including from the server and routers' cache. Therefore, the Round-Trip Time (RTT) of packets can vary when downloading content in NDN compared to TCP, which establishes a session between a client and a specific server. The current transport layer protocol of NDN is mainly designed with reference to TCP. Its timer-based loss detection is not well designed for the nature of NDN, where the RTT of each packet can vary significantly, and leads to false loss detection. In this paper, we attempt to revisit the loss detection mechanism in NDN. We clarify the potential performance degradation of NDN due to the spurious timeouts and propose an NDN-PTO mechanism that improves the accuracy of loss detection by identifying spurious timeouts with a probe Interest. We evaluate the performance of NDN-PTO through a comprehensive simulation and describe its benefits.