Linux 7.0 Fixes a 25-Year Internet Flaw by Default
Your Zoom call freezes when someone starts a download. That’s a design flaw from 1988. Linux 7.0 fixes it by default in April 2026. No…
Your Zoom call freezes when someone starts a download. That’s a design flaw from 1988. Linux 7.0 fixes it by default in April 2026. No action required.
Frozen video. Robotic audio. Someone in your household started a download, and your Zoom call collapsed.
You’ve blamed your ISP (Internet Service Provider). You’ve yelled at your router.
The real problem? TCP (Transmission Control Protocol, the set of rules that governs how data moves across the internet) has been using packet loss as its congestion signal since 1988. When you load a webpage or join a video call, your data travels as small chunks called packets. TCP’s only way of knowing the network is busy? Some of those packets have to get destroyed first. That design choice, made when the entire internet fit on a single campus network, has been wrecking your video calls for a quarter century.
Linux 7.0, shipping in April 2026, changes this by enabling AccECN (Accurate Explicit Congestion Notification) by default. Every new TCP connection on Linux 7.0 will negotiate congestion feedback that reports exactly how congested the network is, not just whether packets got dropped.
Linux runs everywhere. 1.4 billion Android devices and most of the world’s web servers. No user action required.
