The Internet 2.0

http://www.dailytech.com/article.aspx?newsid=11394

Really cool article about CERN using a infrastructure called "The Grid" - 100% fiber optic network that can be up to 10,000x faster than regular copper wired internet.

They are using this technology in the form of a distributed computing project by linking many computers together to crunch quantum mechanics problems and such.

It sounds cool, but it comes down to the monopolistic phone companies upgrading their infrastructure, which we know is horribly slow. I mean if Comcast's infrustructure was all fibre optics with all the latest hardware, we'd be downloading / uploading @ over 10Gbps.

I just can't help thinking of Skynet from the Terminator movies

"skynet will be in control of all our national defenses...
...and you'll be in control of skynet, is that correct?
Yes sir...
then do it!"

sorry, just had to
but the technology is really cool, imagine the speeds

Yeah, it'd be nice but again it isn't gona happen. The primary ISPs out there simply will not fork out the cash. Especially when they can keep bandwidth and throughput expensive, and make tons of money.

and even if they did upgrade the back end the bandwidth would remain low and costs high

You know, the last time CERN brought online a new particle accelerator, an inadvertent byproduct was the internet. That's one of the reasons I can't wait for LHC to turn on...its 7 times more powerful than the current high-energy champ, the Tevatron, and I'd imagine the resolution of the detectors is at least an order of magnitude higher. If the internet was created back then, imagine what could come out of CERN this time around...

Is this the same as I2? Cause I have used that to get Linux ISOs, full sets in less than 20s. It was glorious.

We wont see this tech in the next 20 years for residential applications. What we will see is that new protocall written by the Australian guy that will work with current lines. Fiber is stupidly expensive and difficult to manufacture, there will have to be a new process for making fiberoptics cheaply.


But on the other hand, the phone company here is in the process of doing 'fiber to the home' for digital cable, home phone, and internet as an experiment... so maybe it will be installed like DSL, installed in areas of higher demand sooner.

they were talking about this on discovery channel yesterday I believe

I thought DARPAnet was the precursor to the Internet. What did CERN ave to do with it?