"Ron Natalie" wrote:

There's no such thing as an ACK packet. A TCP packet can have
data as well as the ack for data received.

I wouldn't say there's "no such thing". The people I work with
generally call a packet with the ACK bit set an "ACK". :-). And
if you examine the packets flying in and out during a web surfing
session, they usually don't contain any data.

The latency in the network is going to affect the retransmission
timer on the sending end. Delay is delay. It's not constant, but
it is cumulative.

I'll concede, though, that as long as the acknowledgement timing is
not highly variable, the window will stabilize and you'll get your
nominal throughput *for that particular HTTP request*. Another click
or a redirect and, presto, another delay. It all adds up.

Sorry to flog the dead horse... I'll shut up.

-Scott