What are the 3 major components of the TCP congestion-control algorithm and give a brief explanation of each?

Answer 1

The three major components of the TCP congestion-control algorithm are slow start, congestion avoidance, and fast recovery.

1. Slow Start: This phase begins with a small congestion window (cwnd) size, typically starting at one segment, and increases exponentially with each acknowledgment received, allowing the sender to probe the network capacity.

2. Congestion Avoidance: Once the congestion window reaches a certain threshold (ssthresh), TCP transitions to this phase, where it increases the window size linearly to avoid overwhelming the network, thereby reducing the likelihood of congestion.

3. Fast Recovery: This mechanism kicks in after packet loss is detected (usually through duplicate acknowledgments), allowing TCP to quickly reduce the congestion window and retransmit lost packets without returning to the slow start phase, thus improving overall efficiency.