Vint Cerf, who many herald as the father of the internet, it was either him or Al Gore, neither you or I really care, is one hell of a forward thinking individual. He developed Delay Tolerant Networking (DTN) in the late 1990s because he knew that one day men and women would be flying all around space, and the ping between Earth and Mars, which can have a round trip time of up to 40 minutes, is not well suited to looking at LOLcats and all the terrible remixes of that scene in Der Untergang where Hitler is in the bunker freaking the fuck out. The Internet Protocol Suite, more commonly known as TCP/IP, which was invented in the 1960s, and further evolved in the 1970s, is what drives the series of tubes that you and I use on a daily basis. DTN is essentially a replacement of TCP/IP developed to deal with space communication. Why is Vint Cerf bothering to bring this to Android then?
Wireless Networks today are not very reliable, especially AT&T’s network, therefore implementing DTN here on Earth would enhance the mobile web experience and also optimize for congestion. But if we’re going to be honest here for a second, the internet has taught us that no one throws away what works, instead little additions are made over time to achieve a certain goal. How successful will DTN be on the consumer internet is anyone’s guess, but if I was a betting man I’d say it isn’t going to take off.
[Via: The Register]