Rumour has it that we are running out of bandwidth on the internet. A bit of potted history might help. About a decade ago before the dotcom bubble burst, governments sold licences to service providers to operate on radio frequencies reserved for the 'Third Generation' or 3G networks. A great deal of optimism about e-commerce at the time led to astronomical figures being paid for these licences – money that the service providers are still having to pay back. Meanwhile demand for mobile data appears to be rising exponentially, driven by our enthusiasm for internet enabled applications on devices such as the iPhone and the seemingly limitless imagination of software developers.
So much for wireless connections, our home ADSL or cable usage is also snowballing. In part this is fed by the peer 2 peer file sharing revolution -a generation brought up on 'free stuff' they can download whilst redefining their understanding of the word 'theft', as well as the exponential increase in availability of all kinds of new entertainment content such as BBC iPlayer and YouTube.
So in the middle of an economic squeeze (where, incidentally demand for free stuff and online entertainment of all sorts is unlikely to fall) service providers already weighed down by borrowing for the investment in their existing infrastructure are struggling to keep their capacity in line with demand and are making noises at governments for help. Governments are also struggling to understand where the funding will come from.
Until this investment comes we can expect to see actual internet speeds fall for end consumers. So consumers and businesses looking to maintain or increase their bandwidth might take a look load balancing. Load balancing involves using connections to more than one service provider (ISP) and combining those connections to form a bigger pipe onto the internet. The technology I have been looking at is called OER, or optimized edge routing. This is particularly useful where an internet connection is shared on a local network. OER works by looking at the statistics for delays and throughput for different kinds of traffic, redirecting the traffic out of the interface with least delay, a bit like a driver who checks the traffic reports before setting out for work.
There are many configurations for OER: it can just look at time sensitive traffic such as web browsing, prefer one ISP over another depending on cost and react in different ways depending on how it is set up. When I first read the technical book I was impressed by a well thought out process but the scope for configuration was huge and the systems for monitoring performance seemed unnecessarily opaque. Thank goodness Cisco Systems, who dreamed up this feature, have excellent technical support from their TAC department and an experienced technician was able to walk me through setting the system up.
The benefits of an intelligent load balancing system like this are clear. By monitoring the state of play on each ISP connection OER can automatically find a way around traffic jams. This includes those caused by uncontrolled congestion or by the deliberate efforts of the ISP to limit traffic. In the marine industry, we provide internet services to ships that mainly rely on satellite systems such as VSAT but also have alternative connection methods such as 3G and local WiFi or WiMax for use in port. These customers can benefit from load balancing to boost their bandwidth during busy periods in port for a fraction of the cost of contracting that additional bandwidth from their VSAT service provider.
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