Bandwidth compression
From ArticleWorld
Bandwidth compression in telecommunication systems could refer to the reduction of the bandwidth that is needed in order to transmit a certain amount of data within a given time span, or the reduction of the time span that is needed in order to transmit a certain amount of data in a given bandwidth.
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Need for bandwidth compression
The volume of emerging Internet-based applications in the past few decades has been expanding rapidly, causing wide-area networks to get saturated. Such saturation over networks has resulted in severe performance problems for traffic over the Internet, especially for the flow of data that is mission critical.
The most obvious way to tackle the growing problem of increasing traffic has been to purchase more bandwidth from carriers. Information Technology (IT) based firms do not find this solution very feasible for overcoming internet traffic, because of unsuitable budgets or in situations where players in the telecom market are still not established well. Total expenses on purchasing and maintaining networks usually works out to about 20 to 30 % of the total budgets of companies.
Aspects that IT players should consider
Considering the factors mentioned above, it has become inevitable for IT firms to focus on the optimization of their existing networks in order to ensure that mission critical applications can be supported effectively and economically. Among the aspects that an IT firm should consider are quality of service (QoS), edge bandwidth compression, optimization aimed at compression, caching and traffic monitoring.
Leading bandwidth compression techniques
Various techniques have been devised for achieving the purpose of bandwidth compression and optimization, also referred to as BCO. A method called caching, which involves temporarily storing repeatedly-appearing, can be useful for web-based contents. The quality of service (QoS) technique can allow priority to mission-critical applications at the cost of the other applications.
Easy-to-configure BCO devices are also useful in maximizing available bandwidth. Some router compression methods require high CPU overhead, because of which they are found to be disadvantageous.
What bandwidth compression techniques achieve for IT organizations
The benefits of bandwidth compression are listed below:
- Overall network capacity and is increased in a very efficient manner, accompanied by a reduction in the network traffic by up to 80%.
- The network bandwidth is freed up for the easy introduction of new applications, as also for the boosting of the performance of existing applications.
- With the use of bandwidth compression techniques, IT organizations do not need to perform frequent network upgrades.