A review and prospect on the network congestion control

Network congestion has become more critical due to the rapid increase in the total number of Internet users and applications. This paper gives a survey for the research development of network congestion control in the past twenty years. The evaluation index of the ideal congestion control protocol is introduced, such as stability, fairness, efficiency, etc. Several network models and analysis methods are also given for the development of the congestion control, such as the nonlinear model, the control theory, the optimization method. On the basis of massive research of the congestion control issues, there is the generalization of the end-to-end protocol and intermediate nodes. Some open problems have been discussed for the further research of network congestion control.