One of the causes of poor Internet performance is its large number of
users. One other cause is the set of sub-optimal techniques for
detecting and utilising available bandwidth in the TCP transport
protocol. Although TCP is now a mature transport protocol, its original
design limits its effectiveness at alleviating network congestion.

Recent work on TCP, known as TCP Vegas, purports to improve the network
congestion control of TCP. This seminar looks at the congestion control
and bandwidth detection techniques of both TCP and TCP Vegas, and shows
where they are deficient. To overcome such network problems, a radical
new congestion control framework for the Internet will be introduced
and examined in detail.

Simulation results which compare TCP, TCP Vegas and the new congestion
control framework will be reviewed. These show that the new framework
can reduce packet loss with the Internet by as much as 500, compared to
TCP. They will also reveal the deficiencies in the Vegas modifications
to TCP.