Routers from AGH to prevent connections from becoming choked so easily
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ISPs do not have to buy more fiber optics to increase network bandwidth. The problem may be solved by routers that would send data more efficiently. Dr. Jerzy Domżał’s team at AGH has developed a solution that will increase network capacity by up to 30 percent.
"Together with my team we are trying to develop new solutions that will allow for faster, more efficient and therefore cheaper transmission of network traffic, for example on the Internet" - said Dr. Jerzy Domżał from the Faculty of Computer Science, Electronics and Telecommunications, AGH University of Science and Technology in Kraków, one of the winners of this year\'s POLITYKA Science Awards.
"From year to year people generate more and more network traffic. In response, operators increase bandwidth, for example by adding more fiber optics, more radio links, more network resources. Yet the current network is still is not used in full. The connections are oversized" - said the researcher.
For now, only half of connections’ capabilities are used, not 100 percent. If in fact an amount of information that exceeds 50 percent maximum bandwidth is sent at the same time, operators are starting to worry about possible delays and network choking, for example in case of accident or an unexpected event. A user can experience bandwidth congestion for example in the form of voice fading during a telephone call, or interrupt Internet broadcasts. So far, there were no appropriate solutions that would guarantee good service quality with a high percentage of utilization of network resources.
Dr. Domżał knows how to make the network operate efficiently, even when 80 percent resources are used. His team’s solutions would therefore increase efficiency by 30 percent. This would mean lower costs of increasing bandwidth for Internet service providers, can consequently perhaps also mean cheaper Internet access for consumers.
When traffic begins to approach 50 percent, providers face a dilemma: they can either buy more bandwidth - e.g. by adding fiber optics, or invest in new solutions and send more traffic through the same infrastructure. "Today, it turns out that it is cheaper to buy infrastructure. But we have prepared solutions, which will be more cost-effective than buying more bandwidth" - he said.
His team developed a router, a network device that decides which route to send data packets. Dr. Domżał explained that in our homes we have inefficient routers, with relatively low quality. A solution from AGH concerns the routers used in ISP networks - large and powerful devices, that can be worth a few million zlotys. "The idea is not to replace these devices, but to change the way they work" - said the scientist. He added that the idea is to improve the functioning of the router operating system so that it can send more packets over the network that already exists.
These improvements include ranking traffic so that the most important network packets are handled first. "A 30 seconds delay in receiving an email probably will not make much difference. But half a minute break when watching Internet television can cause frustration" - described the researcher.
Another proposal is the solution that will enable the use of multiple paths in the network at the same time. "For example, today, if you need to transfer data between Kraków and Gdańsk, routers always select the route through Warsaw, but not through Poznań, despite the fact that there are available resources. The network is built this way. So far no one has invented a reasonable solution for sending packets via several complementary paths" - said Dr. Domżał. It is a challenge, because, for example, packets must reach the receiver in the correct order, and without loss.
"Attempts at addressing the multipath transfer issue have been made for many years, but no solution has been adopted - they were either too inefficient or too expensive to implement. We believe that our solution will be both efficient and cheap" - said the scientist.
The prototype router is ready. "We submitted this solution for protection in many countries, including the US and the European Union. We are also in talks on the implementation with a leading hardware manufacturer" - said the computer scientist.
PAP - Science and Scholarship in Poland, Ludwika Tomala
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