Project: Future Internet (Janelda Project)

What is the "Future Internet"?

The Future Internet is an international effort to improve the current Internet network and services.  There are over 150 projects in the EU Seventh Framework Research Programme (FP7) under the Network of the Future that address a wide range of issues. In our context, we are concerned with improving the actual network itself, the part that is responsible for moving data around.

Why is the Future Internet important?

Today’s Internet is not robust, secure, reliable, or dependable. Today's internet has problems with scaling in performance due to old design decisions. According to a publication by the European Commission Future Internet Assembly: "..., today's Internet was designed in the 1970s for purposes that bear little resemblance to current and foreseen usage scenarios. New layers and technologies continue to be added that have vastly expanded the scope of what we think now as “The Internet”.  Mismatches between original design goals and current utilisation are now beginning to hamper the Internet’s potential.  A large number of challenges in the realms of technology, business, society and governance have to be overcome if the future development of the Internet is to sustain the networked society of tomorrow."

What are the issues that must be addressed by a Future Internet network technology?

There are many inter-related issues that must be addressed in the design of a new network intended to improve "the Internet" as we understand it today.

• Trustworthiness and Dependability:
  • It must be possible for all users to maintain their privacy and control when and to who they identify themselves
  • It must be possible for all users to accurately identify and mutually authenticate themselves on the Internet, irrespective of their nationality or locality, when required
  • All network traffic should automatically be protected to ensure adequate confidentiality and integrity
  • The availability of the user's access to the network needs to be improved
  • The network needs to be more robust against insider and outsider attacks
• Implement uniform Quality of Service handling:
  • Ensure reliable and efficient movement of network traffic across the network
  • Ensure videos and audio can be delivered reliably without stuttering
  • Ensure fair usage of network resources by users during peak periods
  • Ensure first-responders and critical services receive priority access to the network
• Overcome the current limitations to higher throughput internet:
  • Improve the packet routing technologies (Orienteering)
  • Improve the congestion management technologies (Traffic lights)
  • Overcome the limitations to scaling performance and number of users
  • Reduce the cost to implement network infrastructure
  • Improve the design of the underlying network topology

The need to look for alternative network architectures

Governments around the world, including in America, Europe, Asia are calling for the next revolution in Internet communications to address the above known problems, the search for the “Network of the Future”. But this search is not easy.

To quote the U.S. President’s Cyberspace Policy Review published in 2009: “An advisory group for the [U.S.] Defense Advanced Research Project Agency (DARPA) describes defense of current Internet Protocol-based networks as a losing proposition and calls for an independent examination of alternate architectures”.

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Our vision for Janelda, Synaptic Labs' Future Internet project

To design a Universally trustworthy and dependable network protocol and network architecture that fundamentally addresses the confidentiality, integrity and availability issues of the current Internet permitting improved scalability at lower cost.

Achieving this vision

In contrast to most other initiatives, we have taken a clean-slate approach to global-scale networking that systematically addresses the networking routing, quality of service, efficiency, confidentiality, integrity and availability of network services, from the onset in a holistic manner.  We have designed our networking protocols and architecture around today's semiconductor industry to achieve new levels of efficiency, performance and reduction in cost (per bit/s) in a way that can leverage economies of scale.  

This project is focused on a specific new MESH Network of the Future model proposed by ICT Gozo Member Synaptic Laboratories Limited.  This model will be compatible with the use of Anagran's cutting-edge flow routers.

Janelda's unique-value-propositions

The scope of the Janelda project exceeds that of known public Network of the Future / Future Internet projects in this area.  More specifically, we believe our design can be differentiated from other research efforts in the following ways:

• It is explicitly designed as a "universal network carrier" intended to host all wide-area-network communications protocols such as TCP/IP, ISDN, ATM, Ethernet simultaneously at low cost (additionally Janelda can be hosted over TCP/IP and ISDN where desirable)
• It will employ a global-scale IdM-CKM model for identification and authentication that overcomes the limitations of the current Internet security technologies (PKI X.509, SSL)
• It will encrypts all network traffic between mesh routers and end-to-end between users to improve the security for all stake-holders and to protect the infrastructure from a wide range of outsider attacks
• It ensures all operations performed on packets flowing across the network can be implemented efficiently in high-performance, low latency, low-cost hardware circuits to reduce router cost and reduce power consumption
• All other network services are hosted by the TruSIP ^4clouds platform to ensure robust and correct operation against malware and other attacks.
• It will implement new quality of service and congestion management protocol that improves network utilisation efficiency and improves end-user experience
• It employs an innovative land-based global-scale decentralised mesh network topology that enables every internet access point (home, office) to have redundant connections to the internet (availability).
• It will implement an innovative packet routing technology optimised for global-scale mesh networks that reduces cost and enables new levels of scalability in the network infrastructure itself

What does Synaptic Labs' proposal look like? (Non Technical)

In many respects, to the end user, the new network will "look" very similar to the Internet they know today.  Users will receive a box that looks a little bit like an ADSL internet modem or Cable Modem.  Users will be able to plug in unmodified, off-the-shelf devices that talk using current Internet protocols (IPv4, IPv6) or telephone protocols (POTS, ISDN).  The identity management and authentication technologies proposed for use by Janelda will be designed to work, and deployed first, over today's Internet.

The primary difference the user will experience is a significant improvement in bandwidth, improved network performance during congested periods. A user will gain improved network security transparently for all network traffic, including that of Internet and telephone traffic between Janelda users.  Other users on the Internet will be able to install a small Janelda box that extends many of the end-to-end security properties to them.

What does Synaptic Labs' proposal look like? (Technical)

Please contact us to request access to more detailed information on the network topology

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