We designed TBTCP: a replacement of the whole loss recovery and congestion avoidance logic of TCP, all using timers. The result is conceptually much simpler and will at least in some cases be more efficient than the traditional code because it paces all TCP segments.
So far, we only have code in the ns-3 network simulator. The goal of this thesis is to port the code to the Linux or FreeBSD kernel.
Since the TCP kernel code is quite complex, and TBTCP replaces much of it (and not only the "pluggable" congestion control), this thesis is for enthusiastic kernel hackers. If you would not feel good about calling yourself a "kernel hacker", this is probably not for you.