UDP + Math = Fast File Transfers

Wolfger writes: "A new file transfer protocol talked about in EE Times gets data from one place to another without actually transmitting the data..." Well, the information is transmitted, just not in its original form. I think there are a couple of other places working on similar ideas - wasn't there a company using this for a fast file download application? User would go to download a game demo or something, receive pieces from several different places, and knit them together? Wish I could recall the company's name.

Comments

Prior Art

[cperciva]

Here

Uhh... my shit detector just went off

[tzanger]

From the article:

Meltzer recalled a job where the client had a 32-Mbit/second connection available but was getting a throughput of 0.5 Mbits/s. "It wasn't a question of mere bandwidth. They had too much turnaround," he said.

Um... if you're getting 500kbps on a 32Mbps connection your protocol stinks. 1/64th of your available bandwidth isn't FTP's fault, nor is it TCP's. Either there was a severe bottleneck somewhere between the endpoints, or the protocol was designed to minimize throughput.

More shit:

"FedEx is a hell of a lot more reliable than FTP when you're running 20 Mbytes," said Charlie Oppenheimer, vice president of marketing at Digital Fountain.

They may have better bandwidth but the latency sucks. Furthermore, I've never had FTP destroy my packets. It either made it or it didn't, and it makes it 100% of the time, barring connection failure.

Sorry. I don't buy it. Yeah sending over UDP gives you less hassle than TCP but now you have to take into account all the sequencing and data transfer checks. Not terribly difficult but no rocket science, either.

Re:Not a new concept

[Omnifarious]

I'm beginning to think you are a purposeful idiot who is merely trying to post something that has the appearance of being intelligent (but really required no thought at all) in order to get karma and the +2 bonus to be a jerk with later.