Subject: Packet Loss Rate

From: [email-masked]
Date: Sun, 05 Sep 1999 19:58:38 -0700

Hi,
  
   Can we discuss the relation between the Throughput and the packet
loss rate?

Best Regards

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From: Matthew Roughan <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 06 Sep 1999 14:18:19 +1000

>    Can we discuss the relation between the Throughput and the packet

A good starting point seems to be to look at:
M. Mathis, J. Semke, J. Mahdavi, T. Ott, "The Macroscopic Behavior of
the TCP Congestion Avoidance Algorithm", Computer Communication Review,
volume 27, number 3, pp. 67-82, July 1997, which you can get a copy of
at
	http://www.psc.edu/networking/papers/papers.html
	
As I understand the paper, there is quite a powerful result giving the
average throughput during congestion avoidance to be proportional to
1/sqrt(p) where p is the loss probability. They also have some results
on the constant of proportionality.

I'd be interested to hear about any work people are doing to refine, or
expand this result.

Cheers,
Matt

-- 
Matthew Roughan                  
Software Engineering Research Centre, RMIT University
110 Victoria St, Carlton, Vic 3053,  AUSTRALIA
Ph:    +61 3 9925 4093      
Fax:   +61 3 9925 4094     
Email: [email-masked]     
WWW:   http://www.serc.rmit.edu.au/~matt

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From: Jamshid Mahdavi <[email-masked]>
Date: 07 Sep 1999 09:24:44 -0700

>    Can we discuss the relation between the Throughput and the packet

A few more pointers.  The TCP-friendly page includes the previously
cited references plus many more.  It is at:
  http://www.psc.edu/networking/tcp_friendly.html

In addition, you might tune into the IETF "pilc" (Performance
Implications of Link-layer Characteristics) working group.  The
effects of packet loss on performance is just one area which we have
been working to document.  I believe that several reasonably final
drafts are due to come out from pilc prior to the next IETF.

--J