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

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

$$BW < \frac{MSS * C}{RTT * \sqrt{p}}$$

and

$$BW < (MSS * C)/(RTT * \sqrt{p})$$

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 (approx..)

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