[ih] Global congestion collapse

[Michael Welzl]

Dear all,

Does anybody here have stories about the Internet's congestion
collapse(s) during the 80's? Some details would be great!

Interestingly, RFC 896 describes congestion collapse as a
stable state that is reached via unnecessary retransmits,
whereas the probably more common description refers to a
state where total network throughput decreases in response
to increased input traffic (which can be caused by different
link capacities along end2end paths).

So, I wonder, what was it like? What are your experiences?
When did folks first notice it?

Cheers,
Michael