back to article Brit boffins use TARDIS to re-route data flows through time and space

A gaggle of boffins from University College London have proposed a method to cut data carriage costs for internet service providers (ISPs) and have given their idea the name TARDIS, for “Traffic Assignment and Retiming Dynamics with Inherent Stability”. Described in this paper, the six authors explain that customers of consumer …

COMMENTS

This topic is closed for new posts.
  1. John Smith 19 Gold badge
    Unhappy

    Bound to be taken up with enthusiasm

    It sounds great for ISP's and a pretty s**t deal for consumers.

    I anticipate immediate adoption by the top 5 ISP's in the UK*

    *Which still leaves about 450 that might do better in the local area.

  2. Anonymous Coward
    Coat

    So...

    In the future every ISP will have a little blue box in their data-center

    that takes care of this ?

  3. Arachnoid

    Data transportation

    Much like the post you`ll know its been sent but not sure when it will arrive unless you stick an overpriced stamp on it.

  4. Vic

    Have I got this right?

    This is a cache with a cost-based routing algorithm?

    'Cos we've never seen that before...

    Vic.

  5. TRT Silver badge

    They'll have some stiff competition...

    from the scientist developing the Dynamically Allocating Load-balanced Encryption Key System.

  6. Alan Brown Silver badge

    Smart ISPs

    Deal with the imbalance by selling b/w to hosters (or act as such themselves)

  7. graeme leggett Silver badge

    new income stream

    For BBC worldwide - through licensing the name.

  8. Christian Berger

    It's not like traffic costs are relevant

    At least not on the backbone where they plummet as the equipment continually gets upgraded as part of the maintenance cycle.

    So this is yet another attempt of turning the Internet into a "Google/Facebook/etc."-centric network modelled after 1980s online services.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Traffic costs are always relevant.

      Backbone costs don't necessarily plummet as the upgrades usually cost more than the kit it's replacing. Plus the paper's talking a lot about transit costs. It's biggest challenge (other than implementation) is this:

      "The next stage is to consider which other slots traffic may be shifted to. In practice, this will depend on technical feasibility, user willingness and the availability of data in another slot"

      So consider the current heavy hitter, Netflix streamed content. I suggest most consumers would be unwilling to shift their consumption in time, and space options would be limited to how much you want to bugger up your routing. ISPs can attempt to control their outbound traffic but generally have very limited control over inbound, and for eyeball networks, inbound is the killer.

      1. Christian Berger

        Re: Traffic costs are always relevant.

        Well, but virtually all data intensive companies offer free peering plus free CDN nodes in your network if you provide the rackspace.

        Besides I pay my ISP so I won't have congestion (at least not 99% of the time, accidents can happen).

  9. David 45

    Dodgy copyright ground!

    I can see a "cease and desist" popping up in fairly short order here!

    1. PassingStrange
      Meh

      Re: Dodgy copyright ground! (Err - no?)

      Well, I up-voted the original on principle - but I can't help wondering whether I was actually right to do so. On what sound legal grounds would the Beeb actually claim exclusive use of the name?

      Copyright? No. In the UK at least, copyright does not cover names. (see, e.g., http://www.copyrightservice.co.uk/copyright/p18_copyright_names)

      Trademarks? Possible, but probably not. Whilst the Beeb has registered TARDIS as a trademark, trademarks are usually granted for a particular industry sector. "Polo", for example is a trademark in the UK for both a type of mint and a mark of car. Or there's the well-known clash of naming over "Apple", involving the global IT brand and the Beatles' record publisher, of course (resolved by Apple Computers agreeing not to publish records, and Apple Records agreeing not to produce computers).

      There's UK laws on "passing off", of course. The BBC is still protected in its use of TARDIS by those. But it would take a severe stretch of the imagination to suggest that a data routing strategy/algorithm might be likely to infringe.

      None of the above would in principle stop the Beeb taking someone to court, of course - and that someone might well then give way rather than risk their own assets on the lottery of a court case. It wouldn't alter the legal position one iota - but, sadly, asymmetry at law often produces "unfair" results..

      (IANAL, so the above may easily be flawed - but I've worked with them, and copyright, patents and so forth have been relevant to my job at times.)

This topic is closed for new posts.