TCP was created long before most of the more complex streaming services we use today such as YouTube.com and Twitch.tv.
Transmission Control Protocol/Internet Protocol (TCP/IP) is the underlying protocol of the Internet as we know it today. TCP is part of the TCP/IP protocol, specifically the connection and exchange of streams of data.
Over the past decade we have seen a huge amount of popular content providers take advantage of the Internet and this trend is likely to continue.
I know that I have stopped watching cable TV in favor of streaming the same content through apps. Anyone else?
This kind of disruptive innovation combined with growing encryption concerns worldwide, has had me thinking that we might see a replacement of TCP.
I found an article from January that mentions:
"Because TCP is [implemented] in operating system kernels, and middlebox firmware, making significant changes to TCP is next to impossible."
For the internet to keep growing, we need a next-gen TCP, TechRepublic.com 2016
As the Internet grows in size so does the difficulty involved in replacing these fundamental pieces.
Because streaming video with TCP isn't efficient as it could be, additional resources are spent on optimizing the little we can do. For example, Google has created an experimental protocol, called QUIC, that uses UDP, and has been referred to as a "feat of engineering".
So, check this out: World's internet traffic to surpass one zettabyte in 2016.
Gnarly! That's 1,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 bytes.
Will we see a replacement of TCP in the near future? What about P2P?