RITE: Reducing Internet Transport Latency

RITE: Reducing Internet Transport Latency

Duration
01.11.2012 - 30.10.2015

RITE proposes to remove the root causes of unnecessary latency over the Internet. Whilst time-of-flight delay is inevitable, greater delays can result from interactions between transport protocols and buffers. It is this that RITE are tackling.

In RITE we aim to explore and develop changes to the existing infrastructure, so that the changes can be deployed without having to redesign the Internet. Latency can arise from a myriad of different reasons. As an example, setting up all connections for loading a dynamic web page, including DNS and background database connections, may delay the loading of the page with several extra RTTs. This will, unnecessarily, reduce the load speed. In RITE we analyse network traces and investigate network components and operating systems to locate the bottlenecks. RITE researchers use what we learn from this investigation to develop mechanisms that can be deployed in the existing infrastructure to improve the latency for generic Internet use, as well as for our chosen use-cases.

RITE has a strong focus on standardisation, and works through the IETF to transform the results of the project into standards. The partners also aim to contribute new code to the Linux kernel, making the improvements available to the public.
The project is driven by three specific use-cases: Financial applications, networked games and interactive video. These are applications with very different characteristics, but all have strict latency requirements. The industry partners will benefit from reduced Internet latency in a wide range of applications that they either provide infrastructure or hardware for, ultimately benefitting their customers.
Reducing latency may pave the way for new, exiting uses of the Internet. Applications that to this point have been unthinkable may be realised with consistent low-latency service. Also, lower latency for our time-dependent use-cases will improve the experience for the users drastically, giving our industry partners a competitive benefit.  

Final goal:

The ultimate goal of RITE is to bring stable, low-latency services to Internet users and businesses, and lay the groundwork for consistent low latency in Internet communication.
Starting by better understanding how latency is traded off for throughput and what generates latency in the Internet, we will investigate the Internet systems to find the latency-inducing bottlenecks, both in the end-systems and in the network. Finally we will design mechanisms that can be integrated with the existing infrastructure to improve the experienced latency.

Funding source:

  • The European Commission 
  • Funding scheme: STREP Total Cost: € 4,910,044.00 EC Contribution: € 3,569,000.00 Contract Number: CNECT-ICT-317700

All partners:

  • Simula Research Laboratory (NO)
  • British Telecommunications (UK)
  • Alcatel-Lucent Bell (BE)
  • Megapop Games (NO)
  • University of Oslo (NO)
  • Karlstad University (SE)
  • Institut Mines-Telecom (FR)
  • The University Court of the University of Aberdeen (UK)