Skip to main content

Datagram Congestion Control Protocol
charter-ietf-dccp-06

Document Charter Datagram Congestion Control Protocol WG (dccp)
Title Datagram Congestion Control Protocol
Last updated 2002-06-27
State Approved
WG State Concluded
IESG Responsible AD Wesley Eddy
Charter edit AD (None)
Send notices to (None)

charter-ietf-dccp-06

The Datagram Congestion Control Protocol working group is maintaining
the Datagram Congestion Control Protocol (DCCP).

DCCP is a minimal, general-purpose transport protocol that provides two
main functions: (1) the establishment, maintenance and tear-down of an
unreliable packet flow and (2) congestion control of that packet flow.

The DCCP WG is chartered to work in four areas:

  • maintenance of the core DCCP protocol
  • maintenance of the TFRC congestion control protocol
  • promoting the use of DCCP by upper layers
  • modular extensions to DCCP

In the first area, the WG focuses on maintenance issues (i.e., bug
fixes) to the current DCCP specifications. It also provides the venue
for moving the DCCP specifications along the Standards Track. To
maintain stable specifications, work in this area is tightly controlled
and requires strong justification.

The second area of work, maintains the TCP Friendly Rate Control (TFRC)
congestion control protocol. This includes identification of issues, bug
fixes, and progression of the specification along the Standards Track.

In the third area, the WG will promote and support the adoption and use
of DCCP by upper-layer applications and protocols. This includes
specifications for using existing and emerging protocols and
applications with DCCP (such as RTP over DCCP and DTLS over DCCP) as
well as supporting documents that enhance DCCP deployment and management.

In the fourth area, the WG identifies and develops modular extensions to
the DCCP specifications that increase the usefulness of DCCP. The goal
of this work is to make DCCP attractive to upper-layer protocols and
applications. The WG will consider both requirements brought to it from
external groups that develop or use upper-layer protocols and
applications and may also itself identify a limited number of
prospective applications and upper-layer protocols to investigate.

This work will provide refinements to the existing congestion control
schemes currently provided by DCCP and may also include, for example,
mobility support for DCCP. (The acceptance of new work items on mobility
requires the approval of the IESG.) This work includes the provision of
new congestion control profiles, which are variants of existing ones,
that better serve certain applications, for example, interactive
applications. The WG may consider to recharter in the future to support
the IRTF Internet Congestion Control Research Group (ICCRG) in the
development of new congestion control algorithms through the definition
of concrete specifications for these algorithms.

New work items in the latter two areas must satisfy four conditions:
(1) WG consensus on the suitability and projected quality of the
proposed work item. (2) A core group of WG participants with sufficient
energy and expertise to advance the work item according to the proposed
schedule. (3) Commitment from the WG as a whole to provide sufficient
and timely review of the proposed work item. (4) Agreement by the AD,
who, depending on the scope of the proposed work item, may decide that
an IESG review is needed first.

The DCCP WG pursues its work in close collaboration with several other
IETF WGs and IRTF RGs, including TSVWG, AVT, MMUSIC, BEHAVE, ICCRG and TMRG.