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Re: congestion control? - (was Re: Appointment of a Transport Area Director)

Bob Braden <braden@isi.edu> Mon, 04 March 2013 19:03 UTC

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Subject: Re: congestion control? - (was Re: Appointment of a Transport Area Director)
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On 3/4/2013 10:20 AM, Roger Jørgensen wrote:
> I'll ask a rather basic question and hope someone will answer in an 
> educational way - Why is congestion control so important? And where 
> does it apply? ... :-) 

Ouch. Because without it (as we learned the hard way in the late 1980s) \
the Internet may collapse and provide essentially no service.

It applies to everyone who sends packets into the Internet, potentially. 
OTOH, it is
a collective phenomenon; as long as most Internet users are using TCP, 
it does not
matter much what an individual non-TCP user does. TCP comes with the Gold
Standard congestion control.

Maybe the IETF could and should invite Van Jacobson to attend ab IETF 
meeting to
reprise one of his talks from 20 years ago.

Bob Braden

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