Described are techniques to use adaptive learning to control bandwidth or rate of transmission of a computer on a network. Congestion observations such as packet delay and packet loss are used to compute a congestion signal. The congestion signal is correlated with information about actual congestion on the network, and the transmission rate is adjusted according to the degree of correlation. Transmission rate may not adjust when packet delay or packet loss is not strongly correlated with actual congestion. The congestion signal is adaptively learned. For instance, the relative effects of loss and delay on the congestion signal may change over time. Moreover, an operating congestion level may be minimized by adaptive adjustment.