Patent ID: 7418494

Claim:
A method of controlling data transmission over a communication network, comprising: receiving a request for one or more data packets; sending the one or more data packets; determining a time that a first data packet of the one or more data packets was sent; receiving an acknowledgement of receipt of at least the first data packet; determining a time that the acknowledgement of receipt of the first data packet was received; indicating that significant network congestion exists on the communication network when a number of round trip times that exceed a threshold round trip time exceeds a threshold number, wherein a round trip time comprises an elapsed time between the time that the one or more data packets is sent and the time that an acknowledgement of receipt of the one or more data packets is received, and wherein the threshold round trip time is a fraction of a difference between an estimated congested round trip time and an estimated uncongested round trip time; wherein when significant network congestion is indicated, a rate at which data is sent over the communication network is reduced by adjusting operating parameters of the communication network such that a size of a congestion window is reduced to less than one data packet.