RFC 7661 · EXPERIMENTAL · 2015

Updating TCP to Support Rate-Limited Traffic

Overview

RFC 7661, “Updating TCP to Support Rate-Limited Traffic”, is an Experimental document published in October 2015 by G. Fairhurst, A. Sathiaseelan, R. Secchi. It obsoletes RFC 2861. The canonical text is published by the RFC Editor.

Abstract

This document provides a mechanism to address issues that arise when TCP is used for traffic that exhibits periods where the sending rate is limited by the application rather than the congestion window. It provides an experimental update to TCP that allows a TCP sender to restart quickly following a rate-limited interval. This method is expected to benefit applications that send rate-limited traffic using TCP while also providing an appropriate response if congestion is experienced.

This document also evaluates the Experimental specification of TCP Congestion Window Validation (CWV) defined in RFC 2861 and concludes that RFC 2861 sought to address important issues but failed to deliver a widely used solution. This document therefore reclassifies the status of RFC 2861 from Experimental to Historic. This document obsoletes RFC 2861.

Abstract as published in the RFC, via rfc-editor.org.

What “Experimental” means

Describes a specification that is part of a research or development effort, published so the community can gain experience with it.

Read this RFC

The canonical text of RFC 7661 is hosted at rfc-editor.org. Available in TXT,HTML.

Relationships to other RFCs
This RFC obsoletes
RFC 2861
Other RFCs from 2015

Who Is Online

In total there are 50 users online: 0 registered, 45 guests and 5 bots.

Most users ever online was 1,226 on 13 Jun 2026, 3:56 am.

Bots: AhrefsBot Applebot Other Bot SemrushBot Sogou

Users active in the past 15 minutes. Total registered members: 354