Sky Cache 1998
When AOL offered unlimited Internet access for $19.95, customers couldn't get on the Internet (AOL no longer offers unlimited service). Now BC-Tel has the same problem with their unlimited $20.00 evening calls. The circumstances are different but the outcome is the same. The same problem could plague the Internet as more users sign on and request more and larger files.Cache technology and orbiting satellites may be the answer. What is a cache? It is a place to store web pages. A large percentage of web page requests are for a small number of sites (relatively speaking). Out of one million web sites in it is likely that only about 10,000 are frequently requested. Many browsers on home and public computers open up at the Microsoft site or the Netscape site (only because many people don't know how to set up the default page to be somewhere else). That is a lot of requests for the same page. Now if one could cache (store) the most popular pages at your local ISP (Internet Service Provider) then long distance lines wouldn't be clogged with numerous requests for the same page. Once the page is cached ,then relayed to local it will have shorter download times. There is a problem with this approach however as it would require the local ISP to have " multi mega" hard drive space available to cache the popular pages. Hmmm.
Into this scenario comes satellites and the idea of "sky caching". All duplicate requests, world wide, would be cached (stored) on a satellite and then rebroadcast to ISPs as needed. Everyone would win: end users would obtain their page requests much more quickly making them happy, ISPs would look like great performers, and traffic through the land based Internet backbones would diminish. A person would place a call to their local ISP, a local agent at the ISP would examine the page request and determine if it is cached locally or in the sky cache.
If the page has not been previously requested the agent would allow the caller to fetch it across the land based network, and copy the new request into the existing cache at the local level and in the satellite cache. The next caller for that same page could obtain it from the local server or the satellite much faster as it has been stored there by the previous request.