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Congestion control
⚫ Congestion control refers to techniques and

mechanisms that can either prevent congestion,
before it happens, or remove congestion, after it has
happened. In general, we can divide congestion
control mechanisms into two broad categories: open-
loop congestion control (prevention) and closed-loop
congestion control (removal)
Congestion control
Open-Loop Congestion Control
In open-loop congestion control, policies are applied to prevent

congestion before it happens. In these mechanisms, congestion control is
handled by either the source or the destination.
1. Retransmission Policy
If the sender feels that a sent packet is lost or corrupted, the packet needs
to be retransmitted. Retransmission in general may increase congestion in
the network.
However, a good retransmission policy can prevent congestion. The
retransmission policy and the retransmission timers must be designed to
optimize efficiency and at the same time prevent congestion.
2. Window Policy
The type of window at the sender may also affect congestion. The
Selective Repeat window is better than the Go-Back-N window for
congestion control.
In the Go-Back-N window, when the timer for a packet times out, several
packets may be resent, although some may have arrived safe and sound
at the receiver. This duplication may make the congestion worse.
The Selective Repeat window, on the other hand, tries to send the specific
packets that have been lost or corrupted.
3. Acknowledgment Policy
The acknowledgment policy imposed by the receiver may also affect
congestion. If the receiver does not acknowledge every packet it receives,
it may slow down the sender and help prevent congestion.
Several approaches are used in this case.
A receiver may send an acknowledgment only if it has a packet to be sent
or a special timer expires.
A receiver may decide to acknowledge only N packets at a time. We need
to know that the acknowledgments are also part of the load in a network.
Sending fewer acknowledgments means imposing less load on the
network.
4. Discarding Policy
A good discarding policy by the routers may prevent congestion and at the
same time may not harm the integrity of the transmission.
For example, in audio transmission, if the policy is to discard less
sensitive packets when congestion is likely to happen, the quality of sound
is still preserved and congestion is prevented or alleviated.
5. Admission Policy
An admission policy, which is a quality-of-service mechanism, can also
prevent congestion in virtual circuit networks. Switches in a flow first
check the resource requirement of a flow before admitting it to the
network. A router can deny establishing a virtual circuit connection if there
is congestion in the network or if there is a possibility of future congestion.
Closed-Loop Congestion Control
Closed-loop congestion control mechanisms try to alleviate congestion
after it happens.
1. Back pressure
The technique of back pressure refers to a congestion control mechanism
in which a congested node stops receiving data from the immediate
upstream node or nodes. Back pressure is a node-to-node congestion
control that starts with a node and propagates, in the opposite direction of
data flow, to the source. The back pressure technique can be applied only
to virtual circuit networks, in which each node knows the upstream node
from which a flow of data is corning.
2. Choke Packet
A choke packet is a packet sent by a node to the source to inform it of
congestion. In the choke packet method, the warning is from the router,
which has encountered congestion, to the source station directly. The
intermediate nodes through which the packet has traveled are not warned.
When a router in the Internet is overwhelm with IP datagrams, it may
discard some of them; but it informs the source host, using a source
quench ICMP message.
3. Implicit Signaling
In implicit signaling, there is no communication between the congested
node or nodes and the source. The source guesses that there is a
congestion somewhere in the network from other symptoms.
For example, when a source sends several packets and there is no
acknowledgment for a while, one assumption is that the network is
congested. The delay in receiving an acknowledgment is interpreted as
congestion in the network; the source should slow down
4. Explicit Signaling
The node that experiences congestion can explicitly send a signal to the
source or destination. The explicit signaling method, however, is different
from the choke packet method. In the choke packet method, a separate
packet is used for this purpose; in the explicit signaling method, the signal
is included in the packets that carry data.
Explicit signaling, can occur in either the forward or the backward
direction.
⚫ Backward Signaling
A bit can be set in a packet moving in the direction opposite to the
congestion. This bit can warn the source that there is congestion and that
it needs to slow down to avoid the discarding of packets.
⚫ Forward Signaling
A bit can be set in a packet moving in the direction of the congestion. This
bit can warn the destination that there is congestion. The receiver in this
case can use policies, such as slowing down the acknowledgments, to
alleviate the congestion.
TCP Congestion Control
⚫ Congestion occurs, if the load offered to any network is more than its
capability.
⚫ Once the connection is established, the sender can initialize the
congestion window size (according to the available buffer space in the
receiver).
⚫ The sender's window size can be determined by the receiver and
congestion in the network.
⚫ The actual size of the window can be minimum of the receiver-
advertised window size and the congestion window size.
⚫ Generally, the methods followed by TCP to handle the congestion
consists of three phases:
⚫ 1. Slow start algorithm

Slow start algorithm is used to control the congestion in TCP. In this
algorithm, the size of window grows exponentially till the timeout occurs or
the receiver's window is reached to the maximum threshold (64 kb =
65535 bytes).
Ex.
⚫ Suppose that, the sender
starts with congestion
window = 20 = 1 MSS
(Maximum Segment Size,
each segment consists of
1byte). After receiving
acknowledgement for
segment 1, the size of
window can be increased by
one. Thus, the total size of
congestion window = 21 = 2.
When all the segments are
acknowledged, the total size
of congestion window = 23 =
8.
2. Congestion Avoidance Algorithm

⚫ In slow start algorithm, the size of the congestion window increases
exponentially.
⚫ To avoid the congestion before it happens, it is necessary to slow
down the exponential growth.
⚫ The Congestion avoidance algorithm works with an additive increase
instead of the exponential growth.
⚫ In this algorithm, after receiving each acknowledgement receipt (for
one round), the size of the congestion window can be increased by
one.
Ex.
⚫ Start with, Congestion

window = 1
⚫ By adding 1, congestion
window = 1 + 1 = 2
TCP Congestion Policy Summary
3. Congestion detection algorithm

⚫ If the congestion occurs, it is required to decrease the congestion
window size.
⚫ There are two conditions in which congestion may occur: the
connection time out and the reception of three acknowledgement.
⚫ In both cases, the threshold size can be dropped to one half of the
previous window size.
Ex.
⚫ Assume that the window size = 64 and threshold is set to 32.

⚫ In slow start algorithm, the window size starts from window size = 1,
and then grows exponentially.
⚫ Thereafter, when it reaches to threshold value, the congestion
avoidance method allows the window size to increase linearly ( by
adding 1).
⚫ However, the connection time-out occurs and the window size = 36. At
this phase, the multiplicative decrease method is applied to the
window size 36/2 = 18 (new threshold).
⚫ Again, TCP starts working with slow start algorithm and the
transmission is carried out.
Congestion Detection :
Multiplicative Decrease
So, TCP assumes there is congestion if it detects a packet loss

• A TCP sender can detect lost packets via:
• Timeout of a retransmission timer
• Receipt of a 3 or more duplicate ACK
• TCP interprets a Timeout as a binary congestion signal. When a

timeout occurs, the sender performs:
– cwnd is reset to one:
cwnd = 1
– ssthresh is set to half the current size of the congestion window:
ssthressh = cwnd / 2
– and slow-start is entered
Congestion Example
TCP Timers
To perform its operation smoothly, most TCP implementations uses

at least four timers
TCP Timers
Round Trip Time(RTT)

• To calculate the retransmission(RTO), we first need to calculate
the round-trip time(RTT)
• In TCP, there can be only one RTT measurement in progress at
any time
• Measured RTT (RTTM) : how long it takes to send a segment and
receive an acknowledgment of it.
• Smoothed RTT (RTTS) : Weighted average of RTTM and previous

RTTS
TCP Timers
RTT Deviation (RTTD)

Original → No Value
After first measurement → RTTD = RTTM/2
After any other measurement
→ RTTD = (1- ) RTTD +  · l RTTS – RTTM I
• The value of  is also implementation dependent, but is it is usually

is sent to ¼.
Retransmission Timeout (RTO)

Original → Initial Value
After any measurement → RTO = RTTS + 4 RTTD
TCP Timers
Persistence Timer
➢ When acknowledgment with non-zero window size after zero window
size is lost, to correct deadlock, TCP uses a persistence timer for
each connection
➢ When the sending TCP receives an acknowledgment with a window
size of zero, the persistence timer is started
➢ When persistence timer goes off, the sending TCP sends a special
segment called a probe
➢ The probe alerts the receiving TCP that the acknowledgment was lost
and should be resent.
➢ If a response is not received, the sender continues sending the probe
segments and doubling, and resetting the value of the persistence
timer until the value reaches a threshold (usually 60 seconds).
➢ After that sender sends one probe segment every 60s until the window
is reopened.
TCP Timers
KeepaliveTimer
➢ Used to prevent a long idle connection between two TCPs.
➢ Each time the server hears from a client, it resets this timer.
➢ Time-out is usually 2 hours.
➢ After 2 hours, sending 10 probes to client (each 75 secs),
then terminates connection.
TIME-WAIT Timer
➢ The time-wait timer is used during connection termination.

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Lec #6

⚫ Congestion control refers to techniques and

In open-loop congestion control, policies are applied to prevent

⚫ 1. Slow start algorithm

2. Congestion Avoidance Algorithm

⚫ Start with, Congestion

3. Congestion detection algorithm

⚫ Assume that the window size = 64 and threshold is set to 32.

So, TCP assumes there is congestion if it detects a packet loss

• TCP interprets a Timeout as a binary congestion signal. When a

To perform its operation smoothly, most TCP implementations uses

Round Trip Time(RTT)

• Smoothed RTT (RTTS) : Weighted average of RTTM and previous

RTT Deviation (RTTD)

• The value of  is also implementation dependent, but is it is usually

Retransmission Timeout (RTO)

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