Method and apparatus for bandwidth management of TCP traffic employing post-acknowledgement control

An apparatus for bandwidth management of TCP traffic on a communications network, said apparatus comprising:

• a forward data controller having at least one queue for queuing outbound data of said TCP traffic;
• and
• a backward Ack controller having a post-acknowledgement control machine and a plurality of queues for queuing inbound Acks of said TCP traffic, said post-acknowledgement control machine including a state machine, said state machine operates between at least two modes including a normal mode and a sleep mode, said state machine changing from said sleep state to said normal state responsive to said forward data queue being at least partially emptied, and changing from said normal state to said sleep state when said forward data queue is full, and said post-acknowledgement control machine controlling said queuing of said backward Ack bucket by thereafter releasing each of said inbound Acks queued in said backward Ack bucket to the sender of said outbound data in said normal mode.

An apparatus for bandwidth management of TCP traffic on Internet, said apparatus comprising:

• a forward data controller having at least one queue of a plurality of buffer registers for queuing outbound data of said TCP traffic;
• and
• a backward Ack controller having a post-acknowledgement control machine and a plurality of queues each having a plurality of buffer registers for queuing inbound Acks of said TCP traffic, said post-acknowledgement control machine including a state machine, said state machine operates between at least two modes including a normal mode and a sleep mode, said state machine changing from said sleep state to said normal state responsive to said at least one queue of said forward data controller being at least partially emptied, and changing from said normal state to said sleep state when said at least one queue of said forward data controller is full, and said post-acknowledgement control machine controlling said queuing of said backward Ack controller by thereafter releasing each of said inbound Acks queued in said backward Ack controller to the sender of said outbound data in said normal mode.