Congestion window

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In TCP, the congestion window determines the number of bytes that can be outstanding at any time. This is a means of stopping the link between two places from getting overloaded with too much traffic. The size of this window is calculated by estimating how much congestion there is between the two places. Once this size is calculated that is the maximum number of bytes that can be transmitted without acknowledgment that they have been received (done through ACK packets). Basically the size of the window, to a large degree, controls the speed of transmission as transmission pauses until there is acknowledgment.