When TCP Starts Up With Four Packets Into Only Three Buffers
Timothy J. Shepard, Craig Partridge · 1998
This memo provides information for the Internet community. It does not specify an Internet standard of any kind. Distribution of this memo is unlimited. Copyright Notice Copyright (C) The Internet Society (1998). All Rights Reserved. This memo is to document a simple experiment. The experiment showed that in the case of a TCP receiver behind a 9600 bps modem link at the edge of a fast Internet where there are only 3 buffers before the modem (and the fourth packet of a four-packet start will surely be dropped), no significant degradation in performance is experienced by a TCP sending with a four-packet start when compared with a normal slow start (which starts with just one packet). Background Sally Floyd has proposed that TCPs start their initial slow start by