A system and method for communicating between source and destination transmission and presentation of streaming digital information signals can be uses to optimize performance in the context of the contentions among different dimensions of performance including goodput, throughput, delay, receiver buffer requirements and tolerance to loss and jitter. The system provides ordering segments of information based on a priority associated with each of the segments of the information; managing of flow of the segments into and out of a buffer based on the priority of the segments of information; adjusting a rate at which information is provided to a communication medium; and transmitting the information.