Thursday, May 23, 2002

Want a copy of my CD? Sure, give me a few seconds...

An international team working on the Internet2 project set a new record for Internet performance by transferring the equivalent of an entire CD (625 MB) more than half way around the globe (across 12272 km of network) in 13 seconds. A transfer rate of 401 megabits per second was achieved when transferring the data between Alaska and the Netherlands. This is over 8000 times greater than the throughput achievable with the fastest 56 kbps dial-up modem; 400 times greater than the throughput of typical DSL or cable Internet connections.

I'm sure that all you music file "traders" (not to mention software "pirates") are salivating at the prospects for the future. Who needs MP3's when you can get the original high fidelity version in mere seconds! Of course, there are other implications as well. At these ultra high throughputs things like live telesurgery and video-on-demand over the Internet will move from the experimental stage to common place.

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