Increasing Wireless Network Speed By 1000% By Replacing Packets With Algebra 357
MrSeb writes "A team of researchers from MIT, Caltech, Harvard, and other universities in Europe, have devised a way of boosting the performance of wireless networks by up to 10 times — without increasing transmission power, adding more base stations, or using more wireless spectrum. The researchers' creation, coded TCP, is a novel way of transmitting data so that lost packets don't result in higher latency or re-sent data. With coded TCP, blocks of packets are clumped together and then transformed into algebraic equations (PDF) that describe the packets. If part of the message is lost, the receiver can solve the equation to derive the missing data. The process of solving the equations is simple and linear, meaning it doesn't require much processing on behalf of the router/smartphone/laptop. In testing, the coded TCP resulted in some dramatic improvements. MIT found that campus WiFi (2% packet loss) jumped from 1Mbps to 16Mbps. On a fast-moving train (5% packet loss), the connection speed jumped from 0.5Mbps to 13.5Mbps. Moving forward, coded TCP is expected to have huge repercussions on the performance of LTE and WiFi networks — and the technology has already been commercially licensed to several hardware makers."
Introducing... (Score:5, Funny)
... the new Linksys 802.11x=(-b+/-sqrt(b^2-4ac))/2a router!
Re:too specialized on a single protocol? (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Congratulations, Baldrick (Score:5, Funny)
Just send a starting position in PI and a length.
Implementation is left as an exercise.
Re:Congratulations, Baldrick (Score:5, Funny)
This is awesome. Accept it.
I agree, but... this is Slashdot.
Re:Congratulations, Baldrick (Score:4, Funny)
Also, I really wish people would stop shitting on new technologies like they're some sort of oracle. This is awesome. Accept it.
But if I keep shitting on new stuff like that, I can point back to my posts and say "LOOK! SEE? I SAID SO! I DID! ADMIT I WAS RIGHT FOR ONCE!!!!1!" if it fails. If it succeeds, though, I'm counting on nobody remembering my old posts so I can join in the praising of it later! It's a foolproof win-win for me, and that's all that matters!
Re:Congratulations, Baldrick (Score:2, Funny)
RAIP: Redundant Array of Inexpensive Packets
I can see why they didn't use that acronym...
Re:too specialized on a single protocol? (Score:5, Funny)
And the problem with TCP jokes is people keep retelling them slower until you get them.
Re:Just like parity files (Score:2, Funny)
Well, not so much of a joke as an inevitability, but yeah, a lot of the great inventions seem obvious in hindsight. Yet, for some reason, no one figured it out for awhile.
One day it will be obvious to us why this is the case.
Re:This is cool. But... (Score:5, Funny)
The point is it will give them higher data rates for free which they can then charge extra for.
If you believe carriers will get rich and fat from this, then by all means, buy stock! They are public companies. Put your money where your mouth is.
I'd put my money in hay bales, personally, considering people such as AC here's propensity for building strawmen.
Re:Congratulations, Baldrick (Score:3, Funny)
I always knew that cloud hosting companies were screwing us.