Patent ID: 7821937

Claim:
A non-transitory computer-readable storage medium comprising program instructions executable to implement a method comprising: determining a damage loss rate, wherein the damage loss rate indicates a loss rate of packets due to network transmission error and unrelated to network congestion, and wherein determining the damage loss rate comprises dividing a number of packets lost due to network transmission error by a number of packets transmitted over a network; after determining the damage loss rate, sending a plurality of packets over the network; detecting a plurality of packet losses among the plurality of packets sent over the network; in response to each packet loss: determining a respective recent packet loss rate, comprising, for the first packet loss, dividing a number of lost packets by a number of packets transmitted since transmission was started, and for a subsequent packet loss, dividing a number of lost packets by a number of packets transmitted since the previous recent packet loss rate was determined; determining whether the respective recent packet loss rate is greater than the damage loss rate; if the respective recent packet loss rate is greater than the damage loss rate, incrementing a counter; if the respective recent packet loss rate is not greater than the damage loss rate, resetting the counter; determining whether the counter exceeds a threshold value; if the counter exceeds the threshold value, adjusting a rate of sending subsequent packets over the network; and if the counter does not exceed the threshold value, maintaining the rate of sending subsequent packets over the network.