Researchers from Bristol University have discovered a way to create a completely open and programmable Internet that can operate at the speed of light.
Since the Internet in its current state would not be able to support independent development, along with increased bandwidth demands of diverse applications, a team from the High Performance Networks (HPN) group in the University of Bristol’s Department of Electrical and Electronic Engineering set out to explore solutions.
What they developed was a new high-performance network infrastructure that is open and programmable and uses light to carry Internet traffic. The team’s proposal introduces new concepts of open source optical Internet enabled by optical white box and software defined network technologies.
“Hardware and software technologies reported in this paper can potentially revolutionised optical network infrastructure the same way that Google Android and Apple iOS did for mobile phones,” said Dr. Reza Nejabati, Reader in Optical Networks in the HPN group These technologies will hide complexity of optical networks and open them up for traditional programmers and application developers to create new type of internet applications taking advantages of speed of light.”
And while new Internet technology is a frequent occurrence, the team suggests that its technology is one that could result in new internet services and applications not previously possible or disruptive.
“The technologies could also potentially change the balance of power from vendors and operators that are monopolizing the current internet infrastructure to wider users and service providers,” said Dimitra Simeonidou, Professor of High Performance Networks who leads the HPN group.
Story via Bristol University.
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