'The Grid' Could Soon Make the Internet Obsolete

[Blisspath]

Coming soon "the grid" will make the fastest connections today seem like 14.4 dial-up modems.
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/science/article3689881.ece

[Beldaran]

ah, so the government decided the best way to kill this thing they can't control is to make a new one that is more centralized. Nice. [straps on tin-foil hat]

[rock_nog]

"We will add your biological and technological distinctiveness to our own. Your culture will adapt to service us. Resistance is futile. We are the Borg."

[Archibaldo]

Well at least we're making progress. This is progress right?

[beefster09]

I had a hunch SOMETHING like this would happen. The internet, like it says in the article, is based upon poor planning in the sense that it piggybacks on existing mediums (telephone or cable) rather than using a completely independent medium, like ethernet lines or fiber-optic networks. It isn't that the internet is obsolete, it's just that it is becoming vastly more efficient, both cost-wise and speed-wise. 8 Tbps both ways (that's about the speed of just ONE fiber optic cable, and as far as I know, you need two to enable sending) DEFINITELY beats 56Kbps (receival only) or even 6Mbps. (receival only) The highest bandwidth possible on Coax is maybe 60 Mbps.

The only problems that could arise from this are processing power.

[Prrkitty]

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,347212,00.html

Quote: The Internet could soon be made obsolete. The scientists who pioneered it have now built a lightning-fast replacement capable of downloading entire feature films within seconds.

At speeds about 10,000 times faster than a typical broadband connection, “the grid” will be able to send the entire Rolling Stones back catalogue from Britain to Japan in less than two seconds.

The latest spin-off from Cern, the particle physics centre that created the web, the grid could also provide the kind of power needed to transmit holographic images; allow instant online gaming with hundreds of thousands of players; and offer high-definition video telephony for the price of a local call.

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Hmmm... WOW!! This could prove interesting. ".... 10,000 times faster than a typical broadband connection...." ... that's kinda fast (and yes that's meant as an understatement).

opps: Could a mod merge this with Blisspath's thread... please and thank you...

[Pineconn]

Not to be a buzzkill, but... (http://www.armageddongames.net/forums/showthread.php?t=102074).

Regardless, this is an incredible advance.

[Dechipher]

No more SE lag!

YAY

[Aegix Drakan]

:o Oh my gosh. No more lag...EVER. really nice.


must...GET....

[phattonez]

Not to be a buzzkill, but... (http://www.armageddongames.net/forums/showthread.php?t=102074).

Regardless, this is an incredible advance.

AGN says that the link doesn't exist.

[erm2003]

AGN says that the link doesn't exist.

That's because the threads were merged.

This certainly sounds great, though I wonder how expensive it will be initially when it first starts to come around.

[Dann Woolf]

They're trying to replace the Internet?

Yeah, that'll happen.

[Breaker]

A lot of you don't even bother to read what you're posting about. This already exists and has for several years. I remember reading about it back when I was in highschool. It's nothing new, and right now it's only being used by research institutions and academic networks.

It is NOT going to replace the internet and wasn't intended to do anything like that in the first place.

This technology would be excellent for government agencies, hospitals, schools, etc. It's not for home use.

Hopefully it'll extend over into the general population, but that's not likely to happen for another decade or two, if at all. There's no reason why John and Jane Doe need to use anything this fast except to download 3 seasons of Ugly Betty in 10 seconds.

[AlexMax]

What it sounds like is that they are doing is creating a new high speed 'backbone' that uses the latest technologies strictly for research purposes.

You should start becoming excited when they decide to open their high-bandwidth line to the rest of the internet, which considering the fact that a good portion of the backbone of the internet consists of government agencies, isn't out of the question.

However, in order to see any significant increase in bandwidth, you're going to have to wait for the high-speed infrastructure to actually come to your house. The thing is, current DSL and Cable solutions piggyback on the phone lines and cable TV infrastructure that were put in many many years ago. Currently, Verizon seems to be the only company who is keen on running high-speed fiber optic lines directly to residential consumers, but as their influence grows and as people start switching over to fiber optic lines, it will put the squeeze on phone companies and cable television companies to finally start laying down better infrastructure.

[Dann Woolf]

"At speeds about 10,000 times faster than a typical broadband connection, “the grid” will be able to send the entire Rolling Stones back catalogue from Britain to Japan in less than two seconds."

Mother of God, you could download porn at the speed of light!

...

Mmm... lightspeed porn...

[Cloral]

However, in order to see any significant increase in bandwidth, you're going to have to wait for the high-speed infrastructure to actually come to your house.

EXACTLY. The bottleneck in you internet connection is your connection to your ISP. And most ISPs aren't the least bit interested in increasing your connection speed or quality.