Abstract: The present disclosure presents a method and an apparatus for heavy active estimation mechanism for backhaul management at a small cell base station. For example, the method may include identifying, at the small cell base station, that a throughput of a user equipment (UE) in communication with the small cell base station is potentially limited due to backhaul congestion at the small cell base station, establishing a proxy flow between the small cell base station and a transmission control protocol (TCP) proxy peer in response to the identifying, wherein the proxy flow data packets are transmitted from the small cell base station to the TCP proxy peer or from the TCP proxy peer to the small cell base station, calculating a throughput of the proxy flow for a pre-determined time period, and determining whether the throughput of the UE is limited by backhaul congestion at the small cell base station based on the calculated throughput of the proxy flow.