While talking about UDP I saw/heard congestion come up a few times. What does that mean?
congestion is when you are trying to send too much data over a limited bandwidth, it cannot send the data faster than the incoming amount so additional packets are dropped.
When congestion occurs, you can see these effects:
Delay due to the queue at one end of the connection being too big, so it takes time for your packet to be transmitted.
Packet loss when new packets are simply dropped, forcing connection resets (and often causing more congestion).
Lower quality of service, protocols like TCP will do a cutback on the transmission rate, so your throughput will be lowered.
Blocking, certain networks have protocol priorities, so your UDP packets may be dropped in favor of allowing TCP traffic through.
Its like a traffic jam, imagine right after a sports game where a parking lot full of cars is trying to empty out into a small side street.