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8.6 GB Internet?

prostoalex writes "Caltech computer scientists announced the protocol, capable of delivering 8,609 Mbps over the Internet, using 10 simultaneous flows of data. The research project was conducted in partnership with CERN, DataTAG, StarLight, Cisco, and Level 3. The practical applications, according to the press release, is ability 'to download a full-length DVD movie in less than five seconds'. There is a number of papers and scientific publications available."

44 of 322 comments (clear)

  1. watch out! by rehabdoll · · Score: 5, Funny

    CERN, DataTAG, StarLight & Cisco - watch out! MPAA is coming for you!

    1. Re:watch out! by product+byproduct · · Score: 4, Funny

      And the MPAA will measure piracy in "GB-equivalent" because some of these gigabytes are transferred really fast.

    2. Re:watch out! by Anonymous+Struct · · Score: 5, Funny

      Soon they'll just be estimating the cost in lost sales at 'All the Money in the World' each year. If they were smart, they'd just start making their movies eight thousand times longer, and then it'd be like old times again.

      "Back... and to the left... back... and to the left... back....... and to the left..."

  2. Argh! 8Gb by addaon · · Score: 5, Funny

    I have a dream. Some day the editors will learn the difference between a bit and a byte. Or I'll byte a bit of their heads off. [grumble]

    --

    I've had this sig for three days.
    1. Re:Argh! 8Gb by XaXXon · · Score: 4, Informative

      Yes, as the original poster said, it's 8.6 giga-BITS per second. Little 'b' means bits, big 'B' means bytes.

      Saying 8.6GB is off by an order of magnitude.

      Sigh..

    2. Re:Argh! 8Gb by Monkelectric · · Score: 4, Funny

      Actually, its 8/10ths of an order of magnitude, but we're not being picky here now are we ? :)

      --

      Religion is a gateway psychosis. -- Dave Foley

    3. Re:Argh! 8Gb by jelle · · Score: 4, Interesting

      Not only that, it's a different metric, because it's leaving out the 'per second'. My response to the title "8.6GB Internet" was 'the internet is much bigger than 2 DVDs, more like tera or exabytes'.

      Otherwise, who needs Internet connections if you can carry a copy of the whole Internet on 2 discs?

      --
      --- Hindsight is 20/20, but walking backwards is not the answer.
    4. Re:Argh! 8Gb by addaon · · Score: 5, Informative

      More nitpicking, yay! (a) If we assume base 10, it's actually ~0.9031 (log[10](8)) orders of magnitude off, as this is a logarithmic measure; (b) why are we assuming base 10? Base 2, which makes a lot more sense for this thing, gives us an even three orders of magnitude off; as a comment below mentioned, octal gives exactly one.

      --

      I've had this sig for three days.
    5. Re:Argh! 8Gb by Planesdragon · · Score: 5, Insightful

      why are we assuming base 10?

      Because we're humans speaking English. The assumption when humans speak english is that all numbers are base 10 positive whole numbers, unless otherwise noted.

    6. Re:Argh! 8Gb by Tower · · Score: 5, Insightful

      >Actually, it is precisely off by a factor of 8, as is always the difference between B versus b

      Ah, but it isn't! More and more often, there is a direct 10x correlation. Serial ATA, Serial Attached SCSI, Fiber (Fibre) Channel all use 8b/10b encoding, so each 8 bit byte takes up 10 bits on the wire (or equivalent medium). Hence, on a 1Gbps link, the max transfer rate is 100MB/s.

      Of course, if you have a trinary computer, the algorithms may have to be adjusted slightly...

      --
      "It's tough to be bilingual when you get hit in the head."
    7. Re:Argh! 8Gb by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Funny

      Otherwise, who needs Internet connections if you can carry a copy of the whole Internet on 2 discs?

      I recall a frame wherein Dilberts boss ordered up a printout of the internet. So, you don't need to use discs, either.

  3. CalTech by Ken@WearableTech · · Score: 5, Funny


    CalTech's Motto: Enabling Faster Porn and Slashdoting Through Technology

    Bless those people :-)

    1. Re:CalTech by deadsaijinx* · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Geek: "I'm developing a program to download porn 1 million times faster."
      Marge: "Does anyone need that much porn?"
      Homer: "MMMmmm... one million times.... (gurgle noise)"

      Okay, now to say something serious. Even with broadband, most files download painfully slow because no one can afford to constantly upgrade their servers to dish out large volume of data to the public. If you ask me, 8.6Gb ethernet would be a lot more useful. After all, huge file transfers on your ethernet are at least common place.

      --
      YOU SUCK BALLS!
    2. Re:CalTech by ccnull · · Score: 5, Informative

      10Gbps Ethernet already exists.

      The problem is that the fastest hard drives on the market today are Ultra320 SCSI, which have a throughput of 320MB per sec... or about 2.5Gbps. Even that's theoretical, of course. And few people have an all Ultra320 datacenter.

      Just pointing out that the cabling is hardly the bottleneck when you reach that kind of speed, even at the LAN level. I've seen so many people upgrade their switches to gigabit ethernet then scratch their heads wondering why the network is still slow... when the server in the closet hasn't been upgraded in 5 years. Storage will continue to be the bottleneck on the LAN for a long time to come.

    3. Re:CalTech by Sycraft-fu · · Score: 4, Informative

      Just a note that the bottleneck of drives isn't a problem at this point since for now 10Gb ethernet isn't targeted at the desktop or server. It is for links between switches. If you have a switch loaded full of Gb connections, you'll probably want something mroe than just a Gb connecting it to its neighbours. However going to ATM or POS really isn't great since you then have to route instead of just switch. Enter 10Gb ethernet to solve the problem.

  4. A full-length DVD movie in less than five seconds by Faust7 · · Score: 5, Funny

    I can't help but be amused that that was their first measurement standard for it.

    Oh, they meant legit full-length DVD movies...

  5. gosh by LBArrettAnderson · · Score: 4, Funny

    impatient people... can't even wait 5 minutes nowadays... geesh...

  6. That sound you hear by KilljoyAZ · · Score: 5, Funny

    is Jack Valenti having an aneurysm.

    --
    This .sig is currently on hiatus for retooling.
  7. Give me units I can understand! by Lieutenant_Dan · · Score: 5, Funny

    How many Libraries of Congress per hour is that?

    --
    Wearing pants should always be optional.
    1. Re:Give me units I can understand! by Flamerule · · Score: 4, Interesting
      10TB in the Library of Congress (seems to be the standard estimate). So that's about 8Tb (note the bits/Bytes convention)
      I think you mean 80 Tb -- 10 TB * 8 bits/byte.

      Also, this page, at least, says it would take 88 TB = 704 Tb to digitize the LoC.

      8609Mbps we'll say is 8609x10^6 bps, and there are 3600 seconds in an hour, so that ends up being about 31 Tb/hour
      That's correct; 30.992 Tb/hour.
      Divide one by the other, and you get about 4
      With 1 LoC = 80 Tb, we now get 30.992 Tb/hour / 80 Tb = .387 LoC/hour.

      With the much larger figure of 1 LoC = 88 TB = 704 Tb, we get 30.992 Tb/hour / 704 Tb = .044 LoC/hour.

  8. How long will it take for hard drives to catch up? by magnum3065 · · Score: 5, Insightful

    While this is pretty cool theoretically, current hard drives don't even come close to handling this kind of bandwidth, so there isn't much use for this until we can actually manage to store the data fast enough to keep up with the connection.

  9. Five Seconds? by Dr.+Spork · · Score: 5, Funny
    "...ability 'to download a full-length DVD movie in less than five seconds'



    Five seconds?? Ohhhh... but I want it NOW!

  10. Bottleneck by dalutong · · Score: 5, Insightful

    The problem is, what sort of mass storage device can write at 8.6 gigabits/sec?

    --

    What comes first, finding a teacher or becoming a student?
    1. Re:Bottleneck by jelle · · Score: 5, Funny


      Well, /dev/null comes to mind.

      --
      --- Hindsight is 20/20, but walking backwards is not the answer.
    2. Re:Bottleneck by Billly+Gates · · Score: 4, Interesting

      Also a standard pc bus can not handle the load. This makes any card that can receive the signal at such a high speed useless.

      Assumin its actually 8.6 bytes/sec and not bits like another poster suggested, the pci bus would become oversaturated since it can only transfer 3.2 gb/sec ( correct me if the transfer rate is wrong).

      I wonder if a Sun or IBM unix box could handle this. My guess is this speed will only be used as a backbone anyway so only large unix mini's or dedicated routers will send and recieve at 8.6/gbs. Sorry Johny you can not download porn at that speed.

    3. Re:Bottleneck by addaon · · Score: 4, Funny

      An array of card punchers. A very wide array. Or just a piezo speaker, and store it in a mercury delay line until you have time to write it to disk. Hmm... then again, room temperature would give far too much brownian motion for coherence at that bandwidth in mercury. Metallic hydrogen delay line, then.

      --

      I've had this sig for three days.
    4. Re:Bottleneck by Emil+S+Hansen · · Score: 5, Informative
      Assumin its actually 8.6 bytes/sec and not bits like another poster suggested, the pci bus would become oversaturated since it can only transfer 3.2 gb/sec ( correct me if the transfer rate is wrong).

      A 33 MHz/32 bit PCI bus which is standard in most PCs will transfer 133 MB/sec.
      A 66 MHz/32 bit PCI bus which is in quite a few Intel and UNIX servers will transfer 266 MB/sec.
      A 66 MHz/64 bit PCI bus which also is quite common in UNIX servers (and becomming in Intel) will transfer 532 MB/sec.
      A 133 MHz/64 bit PCI bus which is the current standard for big UNIX servers will transfer, you guessed it, 1 GB/sec.
      Mind you that these numbers are pr. PCI bus, some of the lager Intel servers, and most UNIX servers have more than one PCI bus.

      --
      Will work for bandwidth!
  11. HDD Speeds? by PhrostyMcByte · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Okay, todays RAM can top 8GB/s, so there is no problem generating data and sending it through this like that. However, hard drives can't even reach 1/100th of this speed, so don't expect your p2p programs to go much faster ;) This can be great for sites that require a massive pipe and have fiber hard drives's or ISPs. Also be good defence against a slashdotting ;)

  12. We must fear such a technology by glMatrixMode · · Score: 4, Interesting

    that may be silly, but in the case this technology is actually developped, there will remain a crucial battle : the RIAA/MPAA (media lobbies) are going to be so scared by such a tech that they'll do all what they can so that it comes with some kind of DRM (digital rights managements).

    In other words, such a technology would give a boost to legal attempts to allow hard DRM - as is today illegal under the liberty-preserving legislation of a lot of countries, especially in Europe.

    Do not answer that the media lobbies aren't asked to give their opinions here. Because it is part of Microsoft's, Intel's and AMD's (to cite only 3 members of the vast TCPA alliance) strategy to maintain good relationships with the media companies in order to enlarge the computer market.

    You know what I'm talking about - Palladium. I don't think it's necessary to insist on the fact that it would be a bad thing for us.

    --
    War doesn't prove who's right, just who's left.
  13. Re:Megabits per second by Glonoinha · · Score: 4, Funny

    >um.... since when was a byte more than 8 bits?

    When you count in octal, there are 10 bits to a byte. After a few months doing coding on old big iron I accidently balanced my checkbook in octal. Took me a WEEK to get that straightened out.

    Honestly though, this doesn't eliminate the bottleneck, it just moves it from the cables to the Server, or to your hard drive. Given that we can pretty much /. a server using the existing infrastructure should paint a pretty picture of where the bottleneck stands :)

    I still would like to get it to my house, though.

    --
    Glonoinha the MebiByte Slayer
  14. Overhead by yerricde · · Score: 5, Informative

    It is just over a gig a second.

    Not all of that is data. Some is packet headers. Some is error correction. That's why you can't push 6 KB per second over a v.90 dial-up connection at 48 kbps.

    --
    Will I retire or break 10K?
  15. Someday even MPAA will see the commerical benfit by linux11 · · Score: 5, Insightful

    I imagine that there will be a day when you can get ANY movie regardless of popularity from Blockbuster, Best Buy or Circuit City easier than filling out a prescription. You just tell them what legacy movie or TV show episodes you want and 15 minutes later your burned DVD with professional looking label printed on it is ready for pick-up for $20-$30. It may even include a difficult to replicate vendor hologram on the label side of the DVD to help distingish it from non-approved burns.

  16. Re:no thanks by fucksl4shd0t · · Score: 4, Funny

    Why would you want to do that? Don't you understand that this connection would be much, much faster than your current modem? It would be at least 24 times faster, with the potential of being up to 57 times faster. Especially during off-peak hours like Thursday at 8pm.

    That would make me 24 times the pirate I am today, with the potential to be up to 57 times the pirate I am today. Then they would use that peculiar method of reasoning to assign me a sentence that would require 24 lifetimes to serve, with the potential of requiring up to 57 lifetimes to serve.

    Of course, I'm all for upping the stakes, here.

    --
    Like what I said? You might like my music
  17. Re:How long will it take for hard drives to catch by MyGirlFriendsBroken · · Score: 5, Funny

    Who needs hard disk capacity if you can stream a movie in realtime?

    Why would anybody want to watch an entire movie in 5 seconds, certainly my ability to absorb information is not as good as that and I regard it to be rather high(Toung in cheek).

    --
    If you read a speed reading book, does it take you less time to read the second half?
  18. Before you out-geek me by NoData · · Score: 4, Funny

    8.6Mb/s is snatching it

    Yeah, yeah. I meant Gb/s. Still not fast enough to get you laid.

  19. How to pronounce it.. by holyrabbitear · · Score: 5, Funny

    From the article: The protocol is called FAST, standing for Fast Active queue management Scalable Transmission Control Protocol (TCP).
    That would be FAQMSTCP..in other words pronounced
    FAH Q MS TCP...

    as read on FARK...

  20. Don't know... by Esion+Modnar · · Score: 4, Funny
    ...but if you lined all the bits up, end to end, it would reach higher than 10 Olympic size swimming pools...

    (stood on end, that is...)

    --

    They say the first thing to go is your penis. Well, it's either that or your brain. I forget which...
  21. Already started... by Eric_Cartman_South_P · · Score: 5, Funny
    ...ever see Contact?

    1. Re:Already started... by bheerssen · · Score: 4, Funny

      I was going to watch it, but the download was taking too long.

      --
      (Score: -1, Stupid)
  22. So what? by jeffasselin · · Score: 5, Insightful
    No really. That's too fast. A full-length movie would be 2 hours. Why would you need to download it in 5 seconds? It will take you 2 hours to watch ANYWAY. So if you can stream it in a reasonable amount of time (like 2 hours) that would still be nice.

    And I won't add the problem of hard drive speeds which can't handle it. Of course, big RAID arrays and the like can, but not consumer drives.

    Of course, eventually, when we use a better quality encoding method for video/audio, the datarate may have to increase, but right now, it's useless.

    --
    If he explores all forms and substances Straight homeward to their symbol-essences; He shall not die.
  23. Re:A full-length DVD movie in less than five secon by EpsCylonB · · Score: 4, Funny

    I don't understand what it means tho, I need all my measurements in Library of Congress.

  24. I see two things... by The+Master+Control+P · · Score: 5, Interesting

    First, they said it uses 10 parallel data streams. So any given stream is only running ~860Mbps. Could this be a resurgence of parallel commucations? For example, 10 cheap 100Mbps LAN transcievers integrated into 1 card for Gigabit Ethernet speed? Would there be any cost advantages of cramming large numbers of cheap devices onto a card VS a single fast but expensive device? Sort of like Billion-Dollar-Probes vs the smaller/faster/cheaper thing at NASA.

    And I figure that by the time this becomes mainstream, the amount of data needing to be transferred will also have increased by 1 or 2 orders of magnitude, and you'll still be stuck waiting hours for the latest HoloVideo downloads. Just like you wait hours to download Attack of the Clones over DSL and Cable, and like you once waited hours to download that 5 meg shareware program over your 56K modem.

    Seems like the amount of data being stored is always 1 step ahead of the amount that can be conveniently transferred... We need a war on program bloat.

  25. DVDs/Second? by autopr0n · · Score: 4, Funny

    Hey, what happened to Libraries of Congress per fortnight?

    --
    autopr0n is like, down and stuff.
  26. Isnt 10 streams cheating? by Zone-MR · · Score: 4, Insightful

    They are transmitting accross a public network, so in a sense many streams will be contended at one point or another. By splitting the data into 10 streams they are getting an advantage, as their data stream will in effect have a 10-fold priority over other internet traffic.

    But what if this was done on a mass scale, and everyone used 10 streams to increase their transfer rate? I imagine the combined bandwidth would be as bad as a single stream was. Which I find questionable if its efficient, or a good thing for the Internet.