Techniques are provided for adjusting to changes to the latency for a connection between two nodes on a network. In accordance with some embodiments, when a transmitting node encounters a retransmission timeout for a packet sent to a receiving node, the latency for the connection is newly measured and used to calculate a new retransmission timeout period for subsequent transmissions by the transmitting node. In some embodiments, the latency is not newly measured if a selective acknowledgement is received indicating that congestion on the network is only temporary.