MIT researchers have come out with a new architecture that can potentially increase the speed of Internet data transmissions. Called "flow switching," the idea behind it is to overcome the inherent slow downs when the current generation routers are forced to first convert optical signals sent across fiber optic cables into electrical signals. These data packets must then be stored in temporary memory until all fragments are assembled for routing and retransmitting.

Team leader Vincent Chan, an electrical engineering and computer science professor at MIT, says that flow switching will involve routers only accepting signals in one direction. This eliminates the need to process them by first converting the data into electrical signals and could have the potential to speed up the Internet 100 or even 1,000 times faster, asserts Chan.

The team is currently testing the transport portion of the architecture at Bell Labs to ensure that the switch to a full fiber optic architecture will be problem free. Of course, major Internet service provider and router companies will have to buy into the plan for this to work.

For more on this story:
- check out this article at Daily Tech
- check out this article at Computerworld

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