Re: [tcpm] Increasing the Initial Window - Notes

[Michael Welzl <[e-mail]>]

This just gave me an idea:

On Nov 11, 2010, at 2:24 AM, Hagen Paul Pfeifer wrote:

> * Yuchung Cheng | 2010-11-10 12:04:48 [-0800]:
>
>> Let's do a reality check: today browsers open tens of flows  
>> simultaneously
>> to work around small TCP IW (http://www.browserscope.org/  the  
>> "network
>> tab). A study from AT&T and U of Mich also show 15% TCP flows  
>> observed in
>> AT&T network already go over IW3. We want to bring this issue to  
>> the IETF
>> community/experts to stop this downward spiral of sneaky unfair  
>> latency
>> "tune-ups".
>
> Let's do a reality check: we talk about TCP not HTTP. ;-) To  
> clearify it: the
> draft address TCP, including FTP and all protocol built on top of  
> TCP. I know
> google paradigm is "everything over HTTP" ;) but customers of mine  
> do not use
> HTTP at all. TCP based file transfer and UDP based protocols are the  
> lion
> share.

I've seen this argumentation again and again, going back and forth. So  
it seems that we have a lot of data, and many proponents saying that  
it might be worth trying to use IW=10 for the web... but a lot of  
people who argue against the IW=10 keep pointing out that HTTP isn't  
everything.

Why not make this something that could be enabled on a per-socket  
basis? I mean, I can decide whether my socket does Nagle or not, why  
not let the programmer decide where in the range from 4 to 10 the IW  
should be, with a socket option or something?

Cheers,
Michael