3. Protocol description

3.1 Basic principles

DCCP provides a framework for implementing a variety of congestion control mechanisms, each of which can be tailored to a particular type of application. All congestion control functions are implemented by the protocol, without assistance from the application. The use of congestion control is mandatory with DCCP. However, the type of mechanism used to adapt the transmission rate is chosen by the application from among those offered by DCCP, and negotiated between the two endpoints.

DCCP can be seen as a kind of UDP enriched with congestion control (including support for explicit congestion notification or ECN