The Carrier team has officially released the initial version of Carrier 2.0. The latest release of Carrier 2.0 is a collection of technologies, such as DHT (Distributed Hash Tables) and NAT (Network Address Translation), allowing decentralized person-to-person communication built on top of the internet.
Founder Rong Chen describes Carrier 2.0 as “not a telco network protocol” but rather a way to dynamically switch Carrier via a collection of SIM cards assigned with the same number. The smartphone is treated as a Personal Cloud Compute (PC2), with the phone number acting as its global ID. PC2 also serves as the storage location for data. Read more of Rong’s insights on the new Carrier version via his tweet.
Carrier 2.0 is a decentralized protocol that manages traffic between a network of PC2s, facilitating direct person-to-person communication. It’s one of the central pillars of the Elastos infrastructure that breaks away from the standard centralized architecture of HTTP and the old internet. It allows people to contact one another without needing big brother or institutions getting in the way.
Carrier 2.0 Overview
In late October of 2022, Elastos released an article detailing the changes of Carrier 2.0 versus its previous version. Elastos Carrier serves as the communication backbone of the Elastos ecosystem, providing secure and anonymous communication through its native global body of Carrier nodes. However, the first rendition of Carrier had some inefficiency and inconsistent performance issues, which affected user experience and limited the potential for additional use cases. Trinity Tech has been working on Carrier 2.0, which achieves a better balance with a two-layer infrastructure, including a new network of nodes different from Carrier V1.
The network’s first layer is an entirely decentralized DHT network that functions like Carrier’s original network topology. The network’s second layer ia comprised of a federation of nodes supporting applications and their services. Carrier 2.0 introduces three node types: Supernodes, Regular Nodes, and Light Nodes.
It should be noted that the initial version of Carrier 2.0 has yet to include the 2nd layer. It’s centered around the first layer of Carrier, being the DHT tech stack. The upgraded three node types will be in the next version of Carrier 2.0. This new design focuses on a collection of nodes facilitating communication on the Carrier to increase efficiency and speed.
The Trinity team is also developing the tokenomics and incentives infrastructure that will be included in a future release of Carrier 2.0 once most features on top of the Carrier DHT nodes are ready.
Carrier 2.0 Initial Version Release Details
The Carrier 2.0 release showcases the first layer of the communication platform. It enables secure and decentralized peer-to-peer communication and provides various application-oriented services on top of the DHT network. There are several new features released in the first rendition of Carrier 2.0.
Carrier Java is a Java distribution that can be deployed on VPS servers with a public IP address. It is a Carrier node service and supports essential DHT protocol messages such as Ping, FindNode, AnnouncePeer, FindPeer, StoreValue, and FindValue. The messages between DHT nodes use end-to-end encryption to ensure secure communication and cannot be accessed by unauthorized parties.
Carrier 2.0 also includes a Carrier-shell interactive application that allows developers to debug and test DHT messages and features. In addition, the tool can be used to check whether DHT messages are working correctly and to view DHT nodes’ internal status, including the routing table’s health status.
One of the main features of Carrier 2.0 is the ActiveProxy service, which allows the mapping of local/home service entries to be global/publicly accessible. This service allows anyone to deploy a service on the LAN environment that the public can access.
Additionally, the Launcher Daemon application wraps ActiveProxy service features and supports public mapping of local services, making it easier to deploy and manage decentralized applications. Finally, Carrier 2.0 includes basic unit test cases and API test cases, making it easier for developers to test and validate their code.
Carrier 2.0 provides comprehensive tools and features that facilitate various applicated-based services. For example, Carrier’s unified DHT network and end-to-end encryption ensures secure node communication. Carrier’s support for ActiveProxy service and Carrier-shell tools makes it easier to deploy and manage Carrier 2.0.
Future Features of Carrier 2.0
While this initial release is only a tiny part of the overall power of Carrier 2.0, there is a lot to look forward to later this year as well. As mentioned above, the team is actively working on the second layer of Carrier 2.0, which will include the three types of nodes. These nodes include SuperNode (Java, internet server with static IP address), regular Node (Java/Native, home device without IP address), and Light Node (In-browser, client devices).
Later this year, Carrier will have a Federal-based communication integration, which will make up most of the second layer of the network. This utility means the Supernodes will coordinate the communication between peers. This implementation will allow better efficiency of Carrier and process as many messages as possible peer-to-peer.
Another aspect that will be integrated in the future is its ability to interact with multiple storage applications. The team will work on Carrier’s ability to integrate with a solution like IPFS and then move towards Hive.
Carrier is one of the final pieces of the Elastos infrastructure that will move mountains regarding how proper peer-to-peer communication is structured. Keep tabs on Elastos.info and the Twitter account for more updates on Carrier 2.0.
Conclusion
Carrier 2.0 picks up on a Decentralized Web Node (DWN) concept. The goal for Carrier 2.0 is to create a network of nodes that cooperate to facilitate decentralized web services on top of the network. In essence, the DWN model creates a layer 2 aspect to Carrier 2.0 that allows much more efficiency and allows the network to be a higher functional protocol.
Once Carrier 2.0’s 2nd layer is fully implemented, many use cases will come into the fold for the network. ActiveProxy services will allow parties to access applications remotely that are typically only local. An Instant Messaging service will come to light being facilitated by the Super nodes. Elastos project Elacity hopes to leverage the Carrier 2.0 technology to enable p2p file-sharing between Data Vaults on its platform.
As the initial version of Carrier 2.0 lays the groundwork for future releases, the technology is integral to the overall Elastos tech stack. Carrier 2.0 will shape how people communicate with one another in a much more efficient and decentralized manner compared to the archaic and centralized HTTP infrastructure.
