AbstractThe Constrained Application Protocol (CoAP) has been instrumental to the deployment of wireless sensors and actuators in Internet of Things low‐power low‐rate networks. Typically, a large number of such devices interact with a single gateway that routes traffic to servers where complex processing is performed. CoAP provides a highly efficient end‐to‐end mechanism that relies on the User Datagram Protocol for transport, and it is characterized by both low throughput and low latency. Because Internet firewalls typically filter User Datagram Protocol traffic as it traverses from gateways to servers, the use of Transmission Control Protocol (TCP) encapsulation becomes a viable alternative. This solution, however, is negatively affected by network packet loss that, due to TCP inherent retransmissions, severely degrades latency, reducing system responsibility. In this paper, we analyze the effect of TCP‐encapsulated CoAP and propose a mechanism that overcomes these limitations without having to change network topologies or modifying protocol functionality.