- From: <jg@w3.org>
- Date: Thu, 10 Aug 95 17:45:54 -0400
- To: Simon Spero <ses@tipper.oit.unc.edu>
- Cc: Jeffrey Mogul <mogul@pa.dec.com>, Paul Leach <paulle@microsoft.com>, http-wg%cuckoo.hpl.hp.com@hplb.hpl.hp.com
The major point, which has to be reiterated, is that protocols the Web uses must implement congestion control. While what you say is all true (about images not needing in order delivery, if you are willing to tolerate "interesting" display while arriving), widespread deployment of software such as the WWW that does not observe congestion control algorithms can cause the widespread collapse of the Internet, as happened in the 1980's. I, among others, still have scars. And the Web has not (yet) killed the Internet precisely because it has observed congestion control (by being layered on TCP). It is one thing if a uncontrolled protocol is .1% of the internet; it is quite another for one which now represents such a large fraction of total traffic. You do raise an interesting point, true for some datatypes. Audio data only needs to be real-time for teleconferencing; most applications don't demand low latency operation. But for some datatypes, (such as audio) you might want to be able to change compression/quality on the fly, if you find your link is not able to provide sufficient bandwidth (which may vary on a relatively short timescale). Provision for this in NG may be a good thing; but the actual transport of the data better observe congestion control. This implies algorithms very much like those that TCP already provides. - Jim
Received on Thursday, 10 August 1995 14:48:47 UTC