TCP D*: A Low Latency First Congestion Control Algorithm

Abstract: The choice of feedback mechanism between delay and packet loss has long been a point of contention in TCP congestion control. This has partly been resolved, as it has become increasingly evident that delay based methods are needed to facilitate modern interactive web applications. However, what has not been resolved is what control should be used, with the two candidates being the congestion window and the pacing rate. BBR is a new delay based congestion control algorithm that uses a pacing rate as its primary control and the congestion window as a secondary control. We propose that a congestion window first algorithm might give more desirable performance characteristics in situations where latency must be minimized even at the expense of some loss in throughput. To evaluate this hypothesis we introduce a new congestion control algorithm called TCP D*, which is a congestion window first algorithm that adopts BBR's approach of maximizing delivery rate while minimizing latency. In this paper, we discuss the key features of this algorithm, discuss the differences and similarity to BBR, and present some preliminary results based on a real implementation.