Competition increases in the dialup acceleration space as one more company arrives in the ISP universe (or planet).

by Alex Goldman ISP-Planet Managing Editor [June 28, 2004]

The dialup compression space is an unusually cutthroat area in IT. About a dozen different accelerator companies are using genuinely different methods to combine a few separate but proven ideas to accelerate dialup for the masses.

Dialup accelerators use caching at the edge to store content close to the customer. The pain point in the Internet architecture is at the last mile. Whereas in the Internet cloud, data moves at dizzying speeds, at the edge, and particularly over a dialup connection, it moves thousands of times slower.

Caching uses the power of the core to pre-deliver content as close to the edge as possible. Bandwidth with a marginal cost of zero can be expended to lower the load on highly valuable bandwidth from the ISP's POP to the customer's home.

Savings can be improved further by using available CPU cycles at both ends to compress and decompress the content.

Finally, protocols such as TCP that were designed for an era when CPUs were slower by orders of magnitude can be improved by using today's computing power to make more intelligent decisions about what to download, and how and when to download it.

New, but not new
Quincy, Mass.-based Intelligent Compression Technologies brings all of this to the table with its AcceleNet product, recently picked up by MSN, as well as several regional ISPs.

Although relatively new to the ISP space, the company was founded in 1996, and its first product was the Xpress Suite, data compression software.

According to Michael Slygh, the company's president, the accelerator is built on a solid technological foundation. "R&D differentiates us," he says. "We've worked with everyone from the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution to Nortel Networks."

Another key differentiator, says Carlo Chiavaroli, the company's vice president of sales, is attention to customers. "We tailored the product to the needs of different markets. We optimize transport for the wireless market, and we accelerate many different devices." The company has also developed a clientless product for cell phones, and works with several different operating systems for smart phones.

The company claims it has developed a unique compression algorithm for each of several file types, and can compress better than other applications. "We look inside zip files," notes Slygh. "We will compress files in them if we can do so at a higher ratio. Looking forward, we will continue to develop algorithms when new file types come into play."

The company improves delivery by using UDP to keep sending packets when TCP error correction would otherwise intervene to stop transmission. Slygh says this improves high latency connections dramatically, such as cellular and satellite Internet connections.

Pricing and availability
The product is available now. Exact pricing was not available. There are many different pricing models available depending on the business model of the ISP and its geographical location.

"In the wireless carrier space, pricing is based on throughput," Chiavaroli explains. "We have an enterprise software package. Small ISPs don't have lots of cash, so a per user per month model suits them well."

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