RFC 2414 (rfc2414) - Page 1 of 14

Increasing TCP's Initial Window

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Network Working Group                                          M. Allman
Request for Comments: 2414                  NASA Lewis/Sterling Software
Category: Experimental                                          S. Floyd
                                                                    LBNL
                                                            C. Partridge
                                                        BBN Technologies
                                                          September 1998


                    Increasing TCP's Initial Window

Status of this Memo

   This memo defines an Experimental Protocol for the Internet
   community.  It does not specify an Internet standard of any kind.
   Discussion and suggestions for improvement are requested.
   Distribution of this memo is unlimited.

Copyright Notice

   Copyright (C) The Internet Society (1998).  All Rights Reserved.

Abstract

   This document specifies an increase in the permitted initial window
   for TCP from one segment to roughly 4K bytes.  This document
   discusses the advantages and disadvantages of such a change,
   outlining experimental results that indicate the costs and benefits
   of such a change to TCP.

Terminology

   The key words "MUST", "MUST NOT", "REQUIRED", "SHALL", "SHALL NOT",
   "SHOULD", "SHOULD NOT", "RECOMMENDED", "MAY", and "OPTIONAL" in this
   document are to be interpreted as described in RFC 2119 [RFC 2119].

1.  TCP Modification

   This document specifies an increase in the permitted upper bound for
   TCP's initial window from one segment to between two and four
   segments.  In most cases, this change results in an upper bound on
   the initial window of roughly 4K bytes (although given a large
   segment size, the permitted initial window of two segments could be
   significantly larger than 4K bytes).  The upper bound for the initial
   window is given more precisely in (1):

          min (4*MSS, max (2*MSS, 4380 bytes))               (1)




Allman, et. al.               Experimental
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