This is a modification to TCP behaviour, proposed by Sally Floyd. The premise is that it takes a long time for a TCP connection to make a full recovery from packet loss for high-bandwidth long-distance connections. (Yee-Ting Li has a fuller explanation on his page about the fruits of this joint work, including graphs from various tests he has run.)
The code is available as a patch against the Linux kernel (original version for 2.4.16; latest version for 2.4.19 [includes some fixes and improved functionality]; for 2.4.20 [one fix-up]). Also, a patch for 2.4.20, including dtg4 patch from the DataTag project. Other related patches to follow. [Note: the last patch needs to be decompressed using 'gunzip' before use]
These patches include further development by other people involved with the DataTAG project and have been collated by Yee-Ting Li. There are two versions - there is a patch for the 2.4.20 kernel - also available as archive with instructions - and a patch for the 2.6.5 kernel, which is currently being fixed. Both of these patches are for the original Linux kernel source available at kernel.org (and mirrors).
Page constructed 2002-10-02; update 2004-07-12.