[e2e] congestion control for flows w. small packets

[stanislav shalunov]

Joerg Widmer <widmer at informatik.uni-mannheim.de> writes:

> I'd like to hear comments on what you think is an acceptable
> congestion control behavior for flows that send small packets
> (streaming audio etc.).

I take issue with streaming audio as an example of an application that
needs to send small packets.  Streaming audio applications buffer
hundreds of milliseconds (or sometimes even units of seconds) worth of
audio.  Buffering an additional serialization delay of an MTU-sized
packet shouldn't be a problem even at rates as low as 8Kb/s (1.5s).

But even this buffering isn't required if the sender plays a file off
disk rather than a live show.

Small packets might only be necessary for interactive applications
where latency on application level is important and content is
produced live.  I.e., VoIP and not streaming audio.

-- 
Stanislav Shalunov		http://www.internet2.edu/~shalunov/

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