“Can't HTTP/1.1 over TCP do this?”

• Answer: “Sort of, if you work really hard.”

• • Enable HTTP/1.1 pipelining
  • • Most browsers still don't because servers get it wrong!
  • Fragment large downloads via Range requests
  • • Pummel server with many small HTTP requests
    • Risk atomicity issues with dynamic content
  • Track round-trip time, bandwidth in application
  • • Try to keep pipeline full without adding extra delay

• But:

• • Still get head-of-line blocking on TCP segment loss!