The internet is in essence a distributed computing network, we have billions of computers processing information individually, then transferring information as required to other computers.

This model works... well i guess. But i would say that it is not the optimum setup.

Imagine a setup more like cable tv; you own already a monitor, then you say 'lets get some internet up in her', so you call up an internet service provider, and they run the cable to your house, and deliver to you a black box. You plug the black box into your monitor, into the power, and connect whatever USB devices you need, the installer guy gives you a wave, and away he goes.

The black box he plugged in for you is a computer, but not exactly the way we know it. It has a a semi-powerful graphics card, but not insane, it has not a lot of processing power, maybe as low as single core 2Ghz, it has maybe a gig of ram, and a small 10 Gb solid state hard drive (unacessable by user, for drivers, os, etc), it has a sound card (doesnt really matter), it also has a network card that is pretty good. This would cost next to nothing if it were in mass production. The interesting part is that the line your ISP provided you with is a gigabit fiber optics line.

That line is connected to your ISP's servers, which are immensely powerful beasts, many many clusters of many cored beasts, billions of Tb of storage, and insane amounts of ram and GPU capacity. When you purchased an internet connection, you don't do it for the black box, you do it for the use of their servers. When you boot up your box it creates a virtual machine on the server, which has access to near limitless resources.

At first you may think 'but moving the mouse even will lag!'. But no, if you remember, your pc does have some power, and so it will render the mouse correctly, so no worries there. 'and what about gaming? it will lag so bad' not really, gigabit lines are powerful, and can easily handle simple input, and pass you back a rendered frame before you even think about it. To practically very user, they will notice no difference, except that the little black box seems immensely powerful.

Now, imagine that everyone in the world is connection to one super server (exaggeration, probably 1 in every major city is more likely, or even less, but not 1). The time it takes to send a file to another user is now instant. The file is already on the server, it just has to give that user access. No files leave the server, except the rendered and compressed frames for each users screen. How about if you want to purchase a movie online, or a game? well, the game or movie is already on the server, so once again, instant purchase.
How about how long it takes to install a game? it doesn't take any time, installers would no longer exist because there would be no reason for it. A virtual copy of a game is made for you to use instantly, and as soon as you click purchase you can be playing. This also makes games near-inhackable (good luck hacking something that you donut know where it is and have no access to), and instantly patchable (the developer makes a copy of the game, makes any updates, then changes the pointer to the game to the patched copy. It also makes rollbacks instant, if necessary). Websites and you tube loading slowly? well with this system it will be instant, seeing as the server handles everything.

So, in this new system how will they charge us? Obviously if i am using the server for super high quality particle collision simulation, and you are using it for browsing webpages, it doesn't seem fair for us to be charged the same amount. Well, they would probably charge us by CPU time required, so web browsing may only cost you a few dollars a month, but scientific institutes may pay hundreds or thousands.

If you want to upgrade your plan, it would be quick and simple. For example; setup fee may be $100 for line and box, then $1 per hour of CPU time (dont worry, even now my CPU is running at less than 1%, meaning i would be charged $1 for 100 hours if i kept using it just for browsing, so its really not a lot of money). This would come with maybe 20Gb of serverside storage. Storage may be purchase able for $1 per gig, or something.

No more messing around with routers, port forwarding, upgrading your pc, external hard drives, etc.

So what do you think, better model, or worse?

While there are some details I am not sure about, the concept seems okay. However, I'm fairly sure (not 100% sure) that if someone is not connected to your particular mega-server then they won't be able to send or receive any info from it, so everyone in the world would have to be connected to one server. This brings up the second issue. If everyone in the world is always connected to this one server, it would be very easy to send viruses to a huge number of people instantly. This would also make the world entirely dependent on this one (or a few) mega-servers. What if the server is damaged or sabotaged? Then a huge amount of people have just lost their connection to the outside world. As for hacking, if one person buys a game or movie or a music file, they could just put the file into the server for the entire world to get free and instantaneously. Another thing is that IBM and other pc makers would be raped by this. If everyone only needs some cheap set-up equipment then these companies will lose vast amounts of money and maybe go bankrupt. Which would of course have follow effects like job loss, which in turn has effects etc.

So yeah there are some problems with the current system, but I believe the proposed system would not work as well.

Well firstly, as i said this would be ideal, but most probably there would be a lot of servers.
For example, from seeing Australia's infrastructure, I would gauge that most countries would have a server for every couple of million people, or to cover every major area seperated by a couple of thousand kms of nothing.

For example, in Australia we have major server farms in Brisbane, Melbourne and Perth, so this would translate over to 3 major super=server farms for Australia.
Smaller countries such as New Zealand may have just 1, USA may have as many as 10. etc.


It would be pracitaclly impossible to send viruses over such a controlled environment. Its like the international bank systems that are only accessible via ATMs. Its extremely rare for them to be hacked, because its so controlled. There would only need to be 1 virus scan system installed, and that would be a multi million dollar contract, and so you would get a pretty heavy duty scanner to check for viruses.

And as for free distribution, it would be a simple matter to check if a game had been legitimately purchased, same with songs or movies etc. Imagine a hacker is magically able to make a copy of the game from the server, and upload it somewhere else. Someone downloads it, and instantly the file is identified as a purchasable from the server, and the download is rejected. If they somehow were able to access the file then on run it would be identified as illegal (since its run off the server). If they somehow bypassed all the checks, then when connecting to the game lobby or whatever, they would certainly be denied. Its just impossible to happen.

IBM etc still make servers, so no problem there, its just a change in the market that they would have to adjust for.

You do realise that this ammount of concentrated infrastructure would make a lot of new jobs. Its a change in the industry, not the end of it.

Fair enough but there would still be problems such as external access to a server that you aren't connected to, as well as it being concentrated system, meaning any problems with a server would cause problems to everyone connected to that server (possible millions of people).

Well, both arguments are good, but i doubt this will happen anytime soon.
Even if it did, i'd try to stick with my connection the way it is. My own personal computer, invulnerable to anybody's viruses (except my own, i stuffed my computer last night D: )
The only idiots who can affect the way my computer works are myself and my parents, and that's gonna change around christmas

I guess it really depends on who you think has better knowledge/skills with computers, you, or a company riding on a multi billion dollar contract.

I mean, Ive never gotten a virus, or encountered a problem that I couldnt fix, and I'd like to think that my dad (who is the highest level server administrator at the largest tele-coms company in australia) would be able to fix anything, but id still prefer to have the security of a large comapny.

I wasn't saying that i could do any better than a company riding on even a million dollar contract, far from it. I was just saying that given a choice, i'd stick with the way things are.
Also, are you talking about Telstra there?

I tend to prefer leaving it to the pros

and yes

yea good idea.

Hey people have you heard anything about the onlive?It is quite the same with your idea.But still good idea.