Network Congestion

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Discussion

Network Congestion occurs when offered traffic exceeds available forwarding, buffering, or transmission capacity.

In the context of Internet Quality of Service (Internet QoS), Network Congestion increases latency, jitter, and packet loss unless traffic management mechanisms control the overload.

Definition

network condition in which offered traffic exceeds available forwarding, buffering, or transmission capacity

Source

Generalised from Internet QoS and packet-switched networking terminology.

Note

Network Congestion is not application overload, database contention, governance backlog, or DDS resource-limit exhaustion.

Example

A router experiences congestion when incoming packets arrive faster than the outgoing interface forwards them.