INITIAL AND PERIODIC SLOWDOWNS FOR BACKGROUND CONNECTIONS

The technologies disclosed herein provide improvements to the Low Extra Delay Background Transport (LEDBAT) protocol. In some scenarios, a LEDBAT connection cannot obtain accurate measurements for the base delay that it relies on. Slowing down a connection, initially and periodically, can ensure that base delay measurements begin accurately and remain accurate throughout the life of a connection. Data is communicated between two computers in a slow start mode, where a rate of the communication is increased over time from an initial rate. When one or more conditions are met, e.g., an interval lapses, the communication is slowed for a predetermined time period. The communication of the data then resumes in a slow start mode, where a rate of the communication is increased over time from an initial rate.