from; http://www.opalsoft.net/qos/Flows-01.htm

Sally Floyd, Matthew Mathis, Jeffrey Semke and Jamshid Mahdavi's TCP response function.

<latex> BW < \frac{MSS * C}{RTT * \sqrt{p}} </latex>

BW < (MSS * C)/(RTT * sqrt(p))

Where, for the TCP connection, BW is the maximum bandwidth that can be reached, MSS is the maximum segment size, RTT is the mean roundtrip time and p, the packet loss probability of the link. C is a constant which value is SQRT(3/2) when the receiver acknowledges any received packet, and SQRT(3/4) when the receiver uses delayed acknowledgment, i.e., an ACK is sent every other received packet. This function bounds the maximum bandwidth throughput that a TCP connection can reach.

affected by (aprox..)

• buffer length (in packets)
• buffer size (in bytes)
• packet size
• acks