Remember, though - TCPs initial estimate of the congestion window is never less than one packet, large numbers of opening connections can still (I think) lead to congestion collapse. It can defnitely get close to it. At one point, when sunsite was getting a few 100k hits a day with only one T1 there were times when around 2/3rds of all packets were re-transmitted. Jon Crowcroft observed similar problems at some UK links, though see Van's article on either ietf or end2end a month or so back with the counter argument. Simon On Mon, 9 Sep 1996, Perry E. Metzger wrote:
Martin Minow writes:
For several months (years?) Bob Metcalf has been predicting that the Internet will self-destruct from overload. His argument appears to follow one of Gordon Bell's maxims: "anyone can predict the future: all you need is semi-log paper and a ruler." As I understand it, Metcalf's argument is that network load (messages, packets) is growing exponentially, while network bandwidth (fiber capacity, switch performance) is growing linearly. At some point, these two curves cross -- and demand will exceed capacity.
Except for the following.
1) TCP backs off. 2) Capacity is growing exponentially.
Perry
--- Cause maybe (maybe) | In my mind I'm going to Carolina you're gonna be the one that saves me | - back in Chapel Hill May 16th. And after all | Email address remains unchanged You're my firewall - | ........First in Usenet.........