Google's plan to deliver HTTP over UDP

venturebeat.com

7 pointsflying_whale2 comments

Why not just overhaul TCP?

TCP was and is pretty great at what it aims to to do, but it certainly is getting a bit long in the teeth.

For one thing, streams are not quite convenient, it'd be great is messages were a first class member of a new tcp.

Then look at the congestion control issues that are well known in TCP.

Is UDP just a better framework to build something from the ground up?

Well, SCTP gives you messages as first class citizens if you like, or a stream like TCP, multiple channels per connection and many other nice features.

It's mostly used inside telco networks. But unusable for consumers. The routers/modems that people have in their homes don't NAT it, many cellular network blocks it, etc.

An incompatible overhaul of TCP would face the same issues, unless you implement it on top of UDP.

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