Re: Network Abuse by Netscape? -- Was: Mosaic replacements, etc...

Dave Crocker (dcrocker@mordor.stanford.edu)
Thu, 27 Oct 1994 13:44:17 -0700


Overall, I am astonished by the current furor over the attempt to get
better-perceived user performance. The Web has some design characteristics
which make good performance difficult. Namely, all the connection opening.

Overlapping i/o requests is a time-honored approach to improving performance.

On the other hand...

At 12:34 PM 10/22/94, Brian Behlendorf wrote:
>you are totally optimizing for people on the slow end of a 14.4 modem,

overlapping doesn't always help.

My eperience living on the end of a 14.4 modem suggests that MAYBE two
simultaneous transfers work well, but I don't think so. Certainly not
more.

The problem is that the congestion control mechanisms in TCP aren't
sufficiently sensitive to "coordinate" the consumption of such a small
pipe.

d/

--------------------
Dave Crocker
Brandenburg Consulting Phone: +1 408 246 8253
675 Spruce Dr. Fax: +1 408 249 6205
Sunnyvale, CA 94086 Email: dcrocker@mordor.stanford.edu