[e2e] Is a non-TCP solution dead?

[Hans Kruse]

Simple questions:

do you think the Internet as a whole could function TODAY if everyone 
turned off slow-start and congestion avoidance?

If you think the answer is yes, I will need to respectfully disagree;

if the answer is no, do you have any suggestions as to what you think the 
network should look like, i.e. what do you think is needed before the 
transport layer can stop doing congestion control?

--On Friday, April 25, 2003 10:42 -0700 Cannara <cannara at attglobal.net> 
wrote:

> In any case, I don't really care that TCP is in the majority or not.  If
> it is, then the situation is worse, because then more flows will be
> subject to unreasonable slowdowns, which is what I see at client sites --
> e.g., last week's 1% loss => 50% slowdown example.  If TCP is not in the
> majority, then many non-TCP folks are getting good flows and the TCP ones
> are just getting dinged more.
>
> The bottom line is that the research on managing the network layer has
> been put off for 20 years or so and is long overdue.  TCP diddling won't
> do the job needed, because TCP is faced with strict undecidability.
> There have been links from IP to TCP proposed to help, but unless even IP
> has better path info, the game is not going to be played well.



Hans Kruse, Associate Professor
J. Warren McClure School of Communication Systems Management
Adjunct Associate Professor of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science
Ohio University, Athens, OH, 45701
740-593-4891 voice, 740-593-4889 fax