BF2S Forums The Grid' Could Soon Make the Internet Obsolete

mikkel wrote:

Bell wrote:

mikkel wrote:

So you think it costs money to transmit individual bits across a network medium? There's no cost to network transmission. The only cost is the cost that makes the business case for operating networks, and I can assure you that they haven't found a way to make that disappear.

These guys haven't magically found a way to make things cheaper for everyone. They just have huge volumes of data, and setting up a closed off network with very likely exactly the same sort of networking hardware that you'd find in any equally funded Internet network of a similar size is apparently a cheaper solution for them than buying transit traffic or leasing lines to connect each of their sites.

I never stated that, my point was being able to transfer large volumes of data at a much great speed (supposedly), between points would work out cheaper for an organisation in terms of the hold haddiage ''time equals money''.  Using the quote of ''offer high-definition video telephony for the price of a local call'' was purely to illustrate that point.  I never stated using this would be cheaper for you and me to game on or that transfering data cost money per byte.

Martyn

You can already transfer large volumes of data across the Internet at immense rates of throughput. This sort of network requires a big investment, and a good number of very large companies already run networks like these. There are no technological advances involved in this, no great new idea. Technologically, this is exactly the same as the Internet, it's just an internal network built with the same components. This isn't cheaper as a replacement for the current Internet infrastructure. At all.

I'm having difficulty finding basis for any of the claims stated. Mainly because they're absolutely stupid.

mikkel wrote:

Defiance wrote:

ReDevilJR wrote:

THIS MEANS NO LAG IN GAMING!!!

Because the grid will replace shitty routers and servers! OMG!

Apparently also the speed of light. Assuming roughly ~ 1000km to the server you're playing on, a reasonably average distance, even if the link was one straight fibre connection from your PC to the server, it'd introduce some measure of latency.

Considering c at 299,792km/s, and a refractive index of the optical fibre at 1.5, which is typical, you're looking at (1/1.5) ~ 0,67 * c ~ 200,860 km/s inside the fibre, and that's not even accounting for the geometric path length or acceptance angle at all.

That'd be (200,860/1000) ~ 200 lengths covered per second, 5ms of latency, or a ping time of around 10ms.

mikkel wrote:

ReDevilJR wrote:

mikkel wrote:

Apparently also the speed of light. Assuming roughly ~ 1000km to the server you're playing on, a reasonably average distance, even if the link was one straight fibre connection from your PC to the server, it'd introduce some measure of latency.

Considering c at 299,792km/s, and a refractive index of the optical fibre at 1.5, which is typical, you're looking at (1/1.5) ~ 0,67 * c ~ 200,860 km/s inside the fibre, and that's not even accounting for the geometric path length or acceptance angle at all.

That'd be (200,860/1000) ~ 200 lengths covered per second, 5ms of latency, or a ping time of around 10ms.

So, back to what I said, you're not going to notice lag. 5ms is ridiculous if that was everyone's latency. Yes, nothing in our age will be INSTANT, but getting closer and closer is key.

The point is that this is not getting it any closer. Let's take a practical example from the current Internet infrastructure, because the Internet infrastructure today is a perfect example of what kind of capacity can be financially justified.

A traceroute from me to my server across town -

Code:

Copper              1    <1 ms    <1 ms    <1 ms  10.0.0.1
Copper (ATM)        2     7 ms     6 ms     5 ms  loop0.mxc1-vbgx.ip.cybercity.dk [212.242.2.149]
Optical (ethernet)  3     5 ms     5 ms     5 ms  ge-0-1-3-10.mcr1-soex.ip.cybercity.dk [212.242.7.229]
Optical (ethernet)  4    11 ms    11 ms    11 ms  ge-1-0-0.mcr1-aalx.ip.cybercity.dk [212.242.6.18]
Optical (ethernet)  5    11 ms    11 ms    11 ms  ge-0-0-0.mcr1-arhx.ip.cybercity.dk [212.242.6.14]
Optical (ethernet)  6    11 ms    11 ms    11 ms  ge-0-1-0.br1-arhx.ip.cybercity.dk [212.242.7.6]
Optical (ethernet)  7    11 ms    11 ms    11 ms  ge3-45.1000M.arcnxc7.ip.tele.dk [62.243.27.189]
Optical (ethernet)  8    12 ms    11 ms    12 ms  te0-1-1-0.10G.arcnqh2.ip.tele.dk [83.88.20.221]
Optical (SDH)       9    12 ms    11 ms    11 ms  pos0-0-0-0.9953M.kd4nqh2.ip.tele.dk [83.88.21.182]
Optical (SDH)      10    12 ms    12 ms    11 ms  pos0-0-0-0.9953M.alb2nqh2.ip.tele.dk [83.88.23.102]
Optical (ethernet) 11    11 ms    12 ms    11 ms  ge-5-1-0.alb2nxu7.ip.tele.dk [83.88.31.158]
Optical (ethernet) 12    12 ms    12 ms    11 ms  cpe.ge-3-2-0.0x50c4624e.alb2nxu7.customer.tele.dk [80.196.98.78]
Optical (ethernet) 13    12 ms    12 ms    11 ms  Ten2-2.dr1.taa2.dbnet.dk [82.143.217.181]
Optical (ethernet) 14    11 ms    11 ms    12 ms  frufflebottoms.com [89.150.100.200]

More or less optical all the way. This is a typical example of what ISPs can do today while being able to justify the cost and maintain a business case. The project written about in the article does nothing to change this. Nothing at all. No 5ms latencies at longer distances. Not even close. There's no business case for even attempting for latencies that low for regular connections, and it wouldn't even be possible unless you had a dedicated fibre to every single destination on the Internet.

Latencies probably aren't going to go down any case. Circuits, routers and switches on the Internet are upgraded to respond to capacity shortages, not throughput latencies.