Two Department of Energy laboratories have shown that specially marked internet traffic can be given priority service over unmarked traffic, resulting in eight times the performance for important data. Scientists at the Lawrence Berkeley and Argonne, Illinois national laboratories sent two video streams through known congested points on an internet backbone network. The priority traffic was transmitted at eight frames per second, while the unmarked packets moved at only one frame per second. According to project leader Bob Fink, widespread commercial application of differentiated internet service is only a year or two away, though the lab expects hardware and software manufacturers and ISPs to pick up the ball from here. The group does not believe its ‘class-based queuing’ will create internet haves and have-nots. Rather, priority service is expected to maximize the internet’s potential, especially for those who need to use it for research and commerce.
