[$] BBR congestion control
Congestion-control algorithms are unglamorous bits of code that allow
network protocols (usually TCP) to maximize the throughput of any given
connection while simultaneously sharing the available bandwidth equitably
with other users. New algorithms tend not to generate a great deal of
excitement; the addition of TCP
New Vegas during the 4.8 merge window drew little fanfare, for example.
The BBR (Bottleneck Bandwidth and RTT)
algorithm just released by Google, though, is attracting rather more
attention; it moves away from the mechanisms traditionally used by these
algorithms in an attempt to get better results in a network characterized by
wireless links, meddling middleboxes, and bufferbloat.