Rate adjustment based on number of congested path

Abstract

Embodiments herein describe tracking the number of congested paths in a multipath connection between endpoints to determine when to throttle the data being transmitted by a sender. In one embodiment, the embodiments herein permit a sender to determine whether congestion is caused by the receiver (or the network as a whole) being congested or only a few paths in the network being congested. The receiver may provide congestion signals that indicate congested paths as feedback to the sender. The sender can track the number of congested paths. For example, the sender can determine a ratio between the number of congested paths and the total paths in the multipath connection. Once this ratio reaches a threshold, the sender may begin data throttling. However, until then, the sender may redirect data that would have been sent on the congested paths to paths that are not yet congested.