Tired of slow internet speeds? Worried about online security? How about what will happen once we run out of IP addresses? Don't fret, a group of university and corporate researchers backed by US government grants and funding from the industry are hard at work designing what could be called Internet 2.0 to address growing needs in speed, scale, and security in the design of the current internet.
The team has already developed new cross-layer protocols (letting physical data layers of the network talk directly to applications) and a new FAST TCP protocol that monitors traffic and packet losses based on the average delay, causing an overall increase in speed. They have developed non-electric diodes to support end-to-end optic networks. Internet2 will run on IPv6, offering 340 undecillion (3.4 x 10 to the 38th power) IP addresses and also offering much smarter routing.
So when will this become a reality? Well, its already starting. The Large Hadron Collider is connected to a 400Gbps version of the internet that also connects hundreds of groups, and has funding to increase its backbone to over 8Tbps (yes - terabits per second), running over 100Gbps fiber (see attached graph). IPv6 is slowly replacing IPv4, and we can expect other technologies to be introduced to the general population as they are ready to be released.
So what would you do with an 8Tbps internet connection?
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