Breakthrough protocol offers web turbo boost

NEWS Sergei Petrov and Tom Crowley, co-founders of Viewbus, claim the 27 year-old transmission control protocol (TCP), which directs packet data across the internet, can no longer cope with today's traffic levels. Viewbus is today launching an intelligent data delivery (IDD) system that it claims will revolutionise the transfer of large data packets online. Petrov said: "TCP was created for a very different purpose and a very different world. It is ill-suited for the modern internet, which requires delivery of lots of data to millions of concurrent users in real-time." According to Crowley, IDD is different because it avoids TCP. "By not using TCP our protocol has control over timings, ensuring that the data gets there in real-time, which is simply not possible with TCP." Viewbus is marketing its technology as a commercial service to sit alongside existing systems, rather than as a replacement protocol. It claims with a few lines of meta text and a Java applet any company can update web pages instantaneously. Mike Thompson, research director at the Butler Group, agreed there are problems with the speed and reliability of TCP. "If it can integrate with and improve TCP, I would support it strongly," he said. "But people aren't suddenly going to throw out something that has been around for 27 years. "The market needs a technology which builds on TCP to improve its performance," added Thompson. "It's going to have to sit with protocols like IP, HTTP and FTP - it has got to be a seamless transition." Tony Lock, senior analyst at Bloor Research, said: "TCP certainly has its drawbacks, speed and a limited addressing range being two of the largest. But to shake things up there would have to be some astounding technological advantages as well as some very big-name backers." The IDD service will be available by the end of the year.