IETF RFC 8311 PDF

This memo updates RFC 3168, which specifies Explicit Congestion Notification (ECN) as an alternative to packet drops for indicating network congestion to endpoints. It relaxes restrictions in RFC 3168 that hinder experimentation towards benefits beyond just removal of loss. This memo summarizes the anticipated areas of experimentation and updates RFC 3168 to enable experimentation in these areas. An Experimental RFC in the IETF document stream is required to take advantage of any of these enabling updates. In addition, this memo makes related updates to the ECN specifications for RTP in RFC 6679 and for the Datagram Congestion Control Protocol (DCCP) in RFCs 4341, 4342, and 5622. This memo also records the conclusion of the ECN nonce experiment in RFC 3540 and provides the rationale for reclassification of RFC 3540 from Experimental to Historic; this reclassification enables new experimental use of the ECT(1) codepoint.