T. Gilling
Jul 22, 2017 · 3 min read

Many thanks for bringing Haste.net to my attention, very interesting.

Next-generation communications, starting with 5G, will be highly affordable, high bandwidth, low latency, highly reliable, and ubiquitously available. An unprecedented set of capabilities that will undoubtedly change our increasing-digital modern world. But next-generation communications, such as 5G, are mostly focused on the last-mile, the connection between our local ISP and our homes and offices. We can improve our ‘local Internet’ infrastructure as much as we want but that will not improve the Internet as a whole. The Internet is what it is and is likely to be so for a very long time to come. All we can do is, quite literally, tinker at its edges (i.e., the last-mile).

If we provide services from ‘local clouds’ (i.e., clouds that are located in close geographic proximity to end-users) then we can make significant improvements, as latency can be reduced, since the physical distance between the cloud and the end-user is also reduced. However for data that has to travel longer distances, from, say, the other side of the world, we still have to contend with physics and the the can-of-worms that is the modern Internet.

That does not mean that the old dog that is our current Internet can’t be taught a few few tricks. Haste.Net obviously understands this and is trying to squeeze the maximum performance out of something that just was not designed to be used in that way. The Internet is a highly-dynamic medium and that means that to get the most out of it you have to use it in a highly-dynamic and highly-intelligent way, responding and adjusting to the ebb and flow of this electronic sea in just the right way.

In some ways, what Haste.Net seems to be doing reminds me of a file transfer protocol called FASP, which stands for Fast And Secure Protocol, developed by a company called Aspera, which is now a subsidiary of IBM. FASP is able achieve in minutes what many other protocols take hours to achieve. FASP has been designed to work in a very particular manner, a manner that exploits a very deep understanding of how the Internet works and the problems that can arise at almost any moment. I know that what Haste.Net and FASP are trying to do is, at one level, fundamentally different, but, at another level, it is exactly the same, communicating large quantities of data across the Internet in a very timely way.

As we get better at transferring data from one side of the world to the other using just the Internet, and with the arrival of next-generation last-mile communications technologies, many things that were impossible in the past will become possible in the future. For example, we will, if we want, be able to transition from our predominantly download-oriented approach to personal computing (i.e., what we do with personal computing devices) to one that is predominantly streaming-oriented. Such an approach can be used for many things, including remote desktops, cloud gaming, and esports.

If you are interested, I have written a few essays around this subject:

T. Gilling

Written by

…is a forward-looking information technologist and the author of The STREAM TONE: The Future of Personal Computing? (www.TheStreamTone.com)

Welcome to a place where words matter. On Medium, smart voices and original ideas take center stage - with no ads in sight. Watch
Follow all the topics you care about, and we’ll deliver the best stories for you to your homepage and inbox. Explore
Get unlimited access to the best stories on Medium — and support writers while you’re at it. Just $5/month. Upgrade