AbstractIn explicit TCP rate control, the receiver's advertised window size in acknowledgment (ACK) packets can be modified by intermediate network elements to reflect network congestion conditions. The TCP receiver's advertised window (i.e. the receive buffer of a TCP connection) limits the maximum window and consequently the throughput that can be achieved by the sender. Appropriate reduction of the advertised window can control the number of packets allowed to be sent from a TCP source. This paper evaluates the performance of a TCP rate control scheme in which the receiver's advertised window size in ACK packets are modified in a network node in order to match the generated load to the assigned bandwidth in the node. Using simulation and performance metrics such as the packet loss rates and the cumulative number of TCP timeouts, we examine the service improvement provided by the TCP rate control scheme to the users. The modified advertised windows computed in the network elements and the link utilization are also examined. Copyright © 2002 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.