(This kind of stuff tends to be discussed on the www-speed list.)
That might help a little bit, but it means putting timers and
retransmit logic in the client.
But my observations indicate that transfer delay and rate are governed
quite a bit more by TCP connection time and the progression through
its slow start algorithms.
FYI...
Just a data point -- two DEC Alpha boxes (i.e. relatively fast
engines), one with a the NCSA server and the other with mosaic. They
each have short, direct 155Mbit paths to a dedicated ATM switch.
In other words, this setup has significant CPU and bandwith resources.
And the time to fetch documents wasn't significantly faster than on an
Ethernet.
--karl--