Sydney, Dec 14 (IANS) Researchers are working on a new project to improve the reliability and efficiency of internet services.

The team includes researchers from the AT&T Labs Research, the research arm of US-based global telecommunications company AT&T.

They will synthesise internet traffic matrices, based on the patterns of real network traffic allowing researchers to test designs of communication networks.

'People use the internet for a range of purposes, from business to entertainment, and they want a reliable 24-hour service at reasonable cost,' said Associate Professor Matt Roughan from Adelaide University's School of Mathematical Sciences.

'Internet traffic is complicated and all the different applications produce different types of traffic. It is like our road and freeway networks with a complex system of arterial and feeder routes,' said Roughan, according to an Adelaide release.

'In traffic management and road planning, we need to know not just how much traffic there is, but where it's going and how a new road or block in an existing road may affect that traffic.

'A traffic matrix looks at the volume, movement and type of data traffic over all starting points and all destinations. There is a big array of numbers but, despite this complexity, internet traffic displays simple patterns.

'This work is about discovering the mathematical underpinnings of these patterns and using them to generate new traffic matrices, against which network designs can be tested,' Roughan said.