Dynamic TCP Acknowledgment in the LogP Model

When messages, which are to be sent point-to-point in a network, become available at irregular intervals, a decision must be made each time a new message becomes available as to whether it should be sent immediately or if it is better to wait for more messages and send them all together. Because of physical properties of the networks, a certain minimum amount of time must elapse in between the transmission of two packets. Thus, whereas waiting delays the transmission of the current data, sending immediately may delay the transmission of the next data to become available even more. We propose a new quality measure and derive optimal deterministic and randomized algorithms for this on-line problem.