Patent ID: 7577097

Claim:
A method comprising: opening, by a first computing device, a single TCP connection for communication of data over a compound stream between the first computing device and a second computing device, the compound stream comprising two or more logical data streams to emulate congestion control behavior of multiple separate network (TCP) connections; and managing data flow over the compound stream with multiple different congestion control schemes by: transmitting, by the first computing device to the second computing device, data over the compound stream with a first congestion control algorithm to provide a base-line of transmission, the first congestion control algorithm being a standard TCP congestion control algorithm; utilizing a second congestion control algorithm to explore bandwidth availability, the first and second congestion control algorithms being different from each other, the second congestion control algorithm being a delay-based congestion control algorithm; increasing, by the delay-based congestion control algorithm, a data sending rate when an associated network is determined to be underutilized; and decreasing, by the delay-based congestion control algorithm, the data sending rate when the associated network is determined to be busy and a queue in an associated network path is determined to be backlogged, wherein decreasing the data sending rate comprises gradually decreasing bandwidth allocation of the second algorithm until it is approximately zero in a busy network to regulate aggressiveness of the compound stream such that it is substantially equivalent to that associated with the first congestion control algorithm.