Re: Congestion control as a hot topic in IETF

On Tuesday, March 19, 2013, Detlef Bosau wrote:

> Am 19.03.2013 00:39, schrieb Detlef Bosau:
>
>>
>>
>> From what you say it becomes clear, that "congestion control" pursues at
>> least three goals.
>>
>> 1.: Stability (in the sense of "no congestion loss").
>> 2.: Probing/Tuning (to the knee or to the cliff, that doesn't really
>> matter here).
>> 3.: Resource sharing / scheduling.
>>
>> These goals are intertwined, while the first one is the easiest to
>> accomplish: Simply obey the conservation principle and you're done.
>>
>> The interesting issues are the second and the third one.
>>
>> Particularly for the third one, I'm not quite sure whether we really
>> focus on the correct resource here.
>>
>>
> O.k., in some private mail, I was told that all these three goals are
> wrong, so I conclude that none of the aforementioned points is a goal of
> congestion control. Obviously, I did not understand any of the papers and
> PhD theses I read through the last decade.
>
> Hence, the remaining question is: Why do we need congestion control?
>

My answer: Our goal is to enhance overall user experience, and CC aids this
because it allows differential treatment of traffic types, and enhances
goodput within each type.

swb