For good data and research on this topic, check the work done by the SPDY team (I linked it in the article, but its easy to miss): http://docs.google.com/a/chr

For good data and research on this topic, check the work done by the SPDY team (I linked it in the article, but its easy to miss): http://docs.google.com/a/chromium.org/viewer?a=v&pid=sites&srcid=Y2hyb21pdW0ub3JnfGRldnxneDoxMzcyOWI1N2I4YzI3NzE2 http://docs.google.com/a/chromium.org/viewer?a=v&pid=sit... http://www.chromium.org/spdy/An_Argument_For_Changing_TCP_Slow_Start.pdf?attredirects=0 http://www.chromium.org/spdy/An_Argument_For_Changing_TCP_Sl... As for slow-start question: CWND is set on the server (on the sender side). You can increase your advertised window, but that will have no effect since it's the server that ramps up the bandwidth, not the client. If you do control both the server and the client then you will definitely see a difference.