FastTCP could speed IPTV over copper

“TCP is stretched to its breaking point – it was not designed for video or for centralized distribution of content,” Henderson said. “Monetizing video means being able to offer higher quality experiences. We’re not talking about YouTube videos. We will eventually be sitting down in our living room and having video delivered over IP. So it’s a very broad problem.”

The common approach to video distribution has been to create distributed networks, with data centers or caching sites spread throughout the geographic territory being covered, Henderson said. What FastTCP attempts to do is enable CDNs to accelerate content anywhere from two to five to 10 times the current rates with no technology deployed at the receiving end, Henderson said. “You can put this in your data center and expand the geographical reach of who can access your content dramatically,” he said. “All the existing pipes going out to the world – anything that becomes clogged, we unclog it. We are opening up the pipes from end to end.”

The system is also designed to help software-as-a-service companies distribute their products and to aid enterprise applications such as the mass distribution of data without having to build data centers and install new hardware and software at each distribution point. FastSoft uses what it calls Intelligent Flow Control to manage packet delay and reduces packet loss over what TCP can do today.

“FastTCP keeps track of transmission times, it can detect congestion in the path and will throttle back or open up the path as needed, which is a much smarter way of sensing contesting on the network and delivering packets so they are sent efficiently and aren’t constantly dropped and retransmitted,” Henderson said.

FastSoft E 1000 is transparent to both ends of the network and its FastTCP technology is backwards-compatible with existing TCP. It can be deployed in any part of the network, Henderson said, and unlike other Web acceleration systems, it is aimed at the carrier and service provider market.

“That is our end goal, that market,” Henderson said. “The low-hanging fruit for us in the beginning is any company monetizing content online, but we think the major growth opportunities are in cable and telco.”