ANONYMOUS wrote: Discarding DATA will result in it, eventually, being re-transmitted, but not for the longest (anticipated) time. During the period of time, we hope that the congestion will 'die' down while the sender waits for the ACK (which will now not be sent or arrive). Discarding an ACK will have little effect, because the sender (waiting for that ACK) is just about to re-tranmit the original DATA again anyway. Moreover, a lot of effort has already been spent to deliver the DATA and return the ACK, and discarding the ACK would have little effect other than forcing that effort to be spent again.