ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on the presentation and analysis of the algorithms and mechanisms utilized by Transmission Control Protocol (TCP), to manage network congestion. TCP mechanisms allow packet flow control that reduces the transfer rate in the presence of a network congestion situation until normalized. When the TCP protocol opens a connection, the application protocols visualize the connection as a simple wire that connects the source to the destination. TCP was constructed to provide connection-oriented services, reliable data transfer and end to end communication between hosts in packet-switched computer networks. All mechanisms concerning the reliability and flow control require that TCP initialize and maintain a certain status of information for each data stream. One of the most important procedures in TCP is the way it handles the retransmission of packets that are lost. The Internet Protocol (IP) constitutes the main network layer protocol of TCP/IP technology.
