"Does TCP Need an Overhaul?" (internetevolution, via slashdot)

Tue Apr 8 23:10:53 UTC 2008

Mike Gonnason wrote:

> This might have been mentioned earlier in the thread, but has anyone
> read the paper by Bob Briscoe titled "Flow Rate Fairness:Dismantling a
> Religion"?  http://www.cs.ucl.ac.uk/staff/bbriscoe/projects/2020comms/refb/draft-briscoe-tsvarea-fair-02.pdf
>  The paper essentially describes the fault in TCP congestion avoidance
> and how P2P applications leverage that flaw to consume as much
> bandwidth as possible. He also proposes that we redefine the mechanism
> we use to determine "fair" resource consumption. 
> 
> Any thoughts regarding this?

The problem is that fairness was probably never a design goal of TCP, 
even with Van Jacobson's congestion avoidance patch.

Bob Briscoe is a member of the IETF Transport Working Group (TSVWG).

This subject got some publicity and politics involved, but please see 
some real discussion on the TSVWG list, with my favorite answer highlighted:

http://thread.gmane.org/gmane.ietf.tsvwg/5184/focus=5199

I recommend some neighboring threads as well:

http://thread.gmane.org/gmane.ietf.tsvwg/5197/focus=5214
http://thread.gmane.org/gmane.ietf.tsvwg/5205

-- 
               << Marcin Cieslak // saper at saper.info >>

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