Redefining the net: TRILOGY brings users high quality, more reliable connections

23 October 2011

EU-funded project TRILOGY has seen European researchers improve Internet traffic management and preserve high quality connections: all this in the context of present-day social, economic and technical demands.

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The Internet as we know it is transforming. With YouTube reaching 3 billion views per day and 2 days’ worth of uploaded videos every minute in 2011, traffic has reached unprecedented figures. Services and applications nowadays have led to such skyrocketing numbers, with Internet capacity hitting its limits. EU-funded project TRILOGY has seen European researchers improve Internet traffic management and preserve high quality connections: all this in the context of present-day social, economic and technical demands.

Download your movies anytime, at full speed. Capacity and control for a stronger network

Your download is almost finished, but the connection is suddenly slowing down, only to come to a halt, seconds later. You would be forgiven for blaming your provider. Still, it is Internet TV, online telephony, games or any other applications invading the net over recent years that have inevitably revealed the shortcomings defining the Internet nowadays. The ever-increasing traffic and security threats have seen bandwidth availability decrease and have generally cast doubt over the strength of the Internet design altogether.

TRILOGY helps improve this design by adding mechanisms to control data sharing and prevent congestion. Congestion emerges when the network becomes overloaded with data and is close to collapsing. This is what happens when your live stream starts buffering for minutes on end.

What the project has developed is a way of managing traffic so that users’ quality of service stays intact. The breakthrough consists of mechanisms that monitor and redirect data traffic from congested paths to other, less loaded parts of the network. This method will keep Internet Service Providers (ISPs) from slowing down peer-to-peer applications and services at peak hours during the day, in order to ease traffic. Moreover, the project manages traffic via congestion exposure (CONEX). ISPs are now able to monitor congestion from one end of the network to another – particularly important when assessing each user’s impact on the entire network.

Setting the future Internet standards

Standardisation bodies have acknowledged TRILOGY’s achievements. The IETF (Internet Engineering Task Force) has created two working groups that have turned TRILOGY’s mechanisms into standards, rendering them operational. This contribution is particularly important, given the nature of the Task Force. The IETF stands out due to its international nature and overall mission, aiming to improve the current Internet use and design. Completed in March 2011, the project has also created an open-source application for Linux operating system.

Related project information:

Trilogy project forms part of the Seventh Framework Programme FP 7 ICT – WORK PROGRAMME 2011 – Objective ICT-2011.1.1 Future Networks, of the European Commission.

• Duration: 36 months
• Start date: 01/01/2010
• End date: 31/12/2012
• Total Cost: € 9.2 m
• EU Contribution: € 5.9 m
• Project Factsheet
• Project Presentation
• Project Website

Read more:
Future Networks R&D Success stories
Future Networks: Connecting the Digital Society