Congestion-Control Throwdown

Abstract

Congestion control is a perennial topic of networking research. In making decisions about who sends data when, congestion-control schemes prevent collapses and ultimately determine the allocation of scarce communications resources among contending users and applications. The field has seen considerable recent activity. Even after three decades of research, basic principles and techniques remain up for debate. In this throwdown-as-paper, the authors find themselves at loggerheads over the fundamental tenets of congestion control.