VIRUSES are common on the Internet, but now it’s the turn of bacteria, says
British Telecom. But rather than being a menace, the organisms BT has in mind
have been designed to help make the Net faster. The idea is to mimic bacterial
sex to “evolve” a more efficient network.
Ian Marshall at BT’s research centre near Martlesham, Suffolk, believes that
the volume of Internet traffic is growing at an unsustainable rate. “It’s
important that the network is able to adapt continuously,” he says. BT’s
solution is to let it manage itself.
Rather than having software oversee the entire network,…
