Unwired unslowed, by Venturi

Stuart Corner
Thursday, 12 October 2006 17:27

Your IT - Home IT

Unwired has implemented Venturi Wireless' optimisation technology on its Sydney and Melbourne networks to reduce load time for web pages and improve the performance for streaming audio and video.

Unwired is the first Australian carrier to implement the Venturi technology which is used by major wireless carriers around the world including Verizon Wireless (US), Willcom (Japan) and Reliance Communications (India). Bret Sewell, Venturi’s president and CEO said Venturi had about one million end users in the US and some had reported downloads up to five times faster with the technology.

The Venturi system works by eliminating much of the 'handshaking' that normally takes place over any IP network and which can significantly increase the time taken for web pages to load, especially in a wireless network. It is also able to do data compression, but Unwired has not implemented this feature as it would reduce the quality of displayed images.

The Venturi system comprises an appliance in the network and Venturi client software which will be available as a free download from the Unwired website. At present only a Windows version is available, but Venturi has a Mac OS X version in Beta which Unwired says it is testing. It hopes to be able to release a Mac version soon.

Unwired says it chose Venturi because it is designed to optimise both pre-WiMAX and WiMAX networks and it plans to work with Venturi to enhance the product in preparation for upgrading its network to WiMAX.

In addition to improving the customer experience, Unwired says the Venturi technology will have a positive impact on its network by reducing resources needed to transport web pages and other content to and from customers.

According to Venturi, "All wireless networks, including high-bandwidth 3G networks, have characteristics - high latency, high packet loss and variable bandwidth - that conflict with the capabilities of TCP. TCP typically reacts to these network conditions by generating heavy and erratic traffic flow, which results in inefficient utilisation of available bandwidth." The Venturi system replaces the transmission control protocol (TCP) with a proprietary Venturi Transmission protocol (VTP)