With the click of a BIC, speeding along the information superhighway may begin to feel like zooming down Germany"s no-holds-barred Autobahn. BIC-TCP (binary increase congestion transmission control protocol) is a new data-transfer protocol that "makes today"s high-speed digital subscriber line (DSL) connections seem lethargic," say computer science researchers at North Carolina State University (NCSU).
Lots of SLAC
In a recent Stanford Linear Accelerator Center (SLAC) study, BIC-TCP "consistently topped the rankings in a set of experiments that determined its stability, scalability and fairness in comparison with other protocols," explained NCSU spokesperson Jon Pishney. SLAC researchers tested six other new protocols from such universities as the California Institute of Technology and University College, London. "BIC can achieve speeds roughly 6,000 times that of DSL and 150,000 times that of current 56K modems," said NCSU computer science professor Injong Rhee, who developed the protocol with fellow NCSU colleagues Khaled Harfoush and Lisong Xu.