A new communications connection timer management framework for handling network communications protocol timers is disclosed. The timer management framework separates transmission control blocks (TCBs) having scheduled actions from the set of all TCBs maintained by a server. The TCBs having scheduled actions are referenced by a time-space partitioned data structure having time-slots corresponding to a current protocol timer "tick" value. The active TCBs are placed within particular ones of the time-space partitions based upon their expiration times. During each timer check sequence (e.g., once every 100 millisecond timer tick for TCP protocol timers), the timer management framework accesses a partition associated with a current timer value and checks the TCBs referenced within the current partition.