RSSFCC ponders a future with multiple 'internets'
By Tim Conneally | Published September 4, 2009, 6:24 PM
While many of the FCC's broadband workshops have dealt with current, concrete issues such as the deployment, adoption, and utilization of broadband in the United States, Thursday's FCC workshop took a refreshing departure from the here and now -- which in government practices is the equivalent to three years ago -- and spent time discussing the ideas that could potentially change what we know as the Internet.
One of the questions in the discussion was, "What might the Internet architecture look like in ten to twenty years, beyond incremental changes like speed increases?"
FCC Chief Technologist Jon Peha moderated the talks, and raised the specific question under this heading: "Is it possible to have multiple 'Internets' running simultaneously using different protocols and maybe even serving different purposes; and if so, is this a new product line for service providers?"
"Whether or not it comes to pass, it is clearly a possibility," David D. Clark, Professor and Senior Research Scientist at the MIT Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence lab replied, "There are people in the research community who deeply believe in it. They think that the ability to take the physical resources, the routers, the circuits, etc., and virtualize them in the same way that we virtualize a machine so that you can then run different...what today we would call 'internets,' -- different architectures -- on different slices is the way to preserve flexibility in the future.
"There are technical issues there, there are also investment issues there," Clark continued. "If I'm a facilities owner, what is my motivation to build a system like that in which I have, in fact, reduced the part of the value chain over which i have any control? For example, if I don't control routing, how do I know where to put the physical circuits so that the logical network actually has circuits going where they want? "There are lots of problems in that space, but the excitement of the enthusiasts there is that if it turns out that you want different internets in different places on different architectures, you can do so without having to go back and replace the equipment; and in the virtualization of the machines in the machine room, you can incredibly change the facilities upon which people can offer their services. That is a distinct possibility, it's got problems, and I'm really enthusiastic about people that are pushing it... It might change the whole sense of what it means to own facilities, what it means for there to be a network, and I think that is a possibility, and it's a radical one."
Dr. Taieb Znati, Division Director, National Science Foundation, agreed with Clark and took the multiple internets notion one step further, saying multiple networks is actually the only way it could go, citing attempts at converged networks, such as ATM, that have failed.
"I think virtualization will afford people the flexibility to deploy different networks for specific purposes, some of them will be short in duration, some will be long duration," Znati continued. "The applications will determine how the network will have to be configured in order for application to reap as much benefit as possible. Now it's not going to be easy to do, and I think virtualization has its problems right now, like David said, and that will be the challenge for us."
No news for 4 days - what's going on?
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|How to shoot down network neutrality making the killing look like a technical problem ...
Of course if is again forgetting the basic principles we should updhold : it is the ubiquity and transparency of the INTERNET that gives it values (even if it destroy a few monopoly revenue sources in the process ...)
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|When holographic technology is perfected, the Internet will be obsolete.
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|Dynamic QoS per packet is gonna be very useful. Things that GOTTA be done with very low latency (ping) (voip, video over ip, remote pc control) or extremely fast rate (say restore an online backup of your office after a fire) coast-to-coast will be possible to do because you'll "pay" more for that usage. The gov simply needs to mandate that, say, 80% of bandwidth must be "network-neutral", while the rest can be bidded away... Most small companies would pay $100 extra to get their 200GB backup in 1 hour instead of 10+ hours...
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|How about you take that same $100 and have the data backed up on a 1TB drive off site that can be utilized within 15-20 minutes (drive time and connection time)? Something perhaps kept a few blocks away or across town? $100 for 200 gigs seems awfully pricey. Backups are very important, but why make things more complicated when they don't have to be?
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|What you mentioned is a good option. However, it's always very smart to have even more options. What if a hurricane/earthquake hit and the roads are shut? What if the entire "20 min drive" area is flooded/burned down and you relocated your operation but the backup data is stuck in traffic?
What I gave is just an example. Super-hi-resolution 3D 360 deg virtual video conferences with CD-quality sound and close to zero latency (for biz or medical/surgery purposes) will only be possible continent-to-continent if per packet bidding/payment/priority routing is performed. Since this will save $10,000+ in first class trips, lodging etc, obviously it'll be THE preferred option in the future. You don't need to be physically there EVEN for factory tours/inspections. You send a trusted local guy wearing a 3D camera/mic and a neck hanging display the size of his face and he walks around being you 10,000 miles away. You move your head to the right, he gets nudged to move his head to the right... It could also theoretically be a bot...
Personally I already do 95% of my work remotely, connecting to various offices desktops to take full control as if I were there physically. You always need somebody there to physically move cables etc - but that is usually a rare need. Most problems are software only issues.
Further, natural disasters like Katerina (and war acts like 9/11) have taught us that certain devices/people need higher priority access to the network for rescue purposes and to communicate with trapped individuals that hold a cell phone in their hand... The network should never "collapse"...only reprioritized.
And for businesses the internet is also critical. What if the internet is down to a point you can only get via cell towers and everyone wants access? You simply let 80% fight for the leftover "basic" voice services while 20% of biz bid out astronomical sums for data connection no matter what happened. Out of the 20% "online no matter what", you also allocate a few %'s to rescue/reserved gov usage.
Anything can be done with more limited technology just as you suggested, but obviously nothing is perfect and everything can be improved upon...and it will...because the problems will keep appearing from time to time and the intelligent researchers and future thinkers will say "if you had THIS syetem in place, you'd have no such problem". And naturally everything has a cost so any radical idea in the tens of billions to implement can take 20-40 years to happen...but you can start it in the labs today already and grow it slowly (one city at a time)...
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|We could talk forever on "what-if's".
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|We can talk forever on what is NOT possible today, and what we want possible in 50 years due to redesigning the internet. Incremental speed increases to the internet and 100% network neutrality IS NOT THE BEST MANKIND CAN DO. Though it may be the best value or "good enough" for even the next 100 years...too early to make the most important thing yet: cost analysis.
Anyway, the first step for the future is ENCOURAGING a balance between network neutrality and packet-prioritization -- a mix between socialism and capitalism. ;)
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|Interesting....given that "network neutrality and packet-prioritization" are polar opposites. Any degree of packet-prioritization is going to be against a neutral network. You can't give preferential treatment in a system where all are equal.
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|@prndll, you do not understand what Network Neutrality is all about. The point of it is you can not prioritize packets carrying say VOIP over other vendors VOIP packets because you own the network. If you are going to prioritize VOIP, then all VOIP is prioritized, competitiors included. So yes, Network neutrality IS THE BEST MANKIND CAN DO in our current greed based world economy.
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|What I understand is that it is better to NOT prioritize packets at all.
However, what do you do when packets for VOIP are sent through a separate system using the same device and are not actually part of the Internet? This is what cable does. It's just like the fact that digital cable boxes get their own IP addresses but are not part of the internet. Cable modems provide an address for the internet and a separate IP address for their VOIP service. But, That VOIP address is not part of or accessible through the common internet.
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|I would like to see the promised high speed internet for all of the rural areas. Believe it or not there are still people who have to rely on dial-up internet connections. I would also wonder what has happened to the proposed free Internet access.
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|oh, they are going to deliver broadband to rural areas, by lowering the definition of what broadband is ;) 100kb/s with an upload of 25kb/s ... truly this is high speed /s
soon, the term broadband may just mean 'alwayson' access to internet and thats it
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|The terms "broadband" or "high speed" in itself is broad and quite vague. That's why there is so much question about defining it. The only real way to currently define it is "anything above dialup". When dialup completely goes away then we can discuss this in better more precise terms. It's alot like what defines "high definition" for television. It's anything above the base 480 for standard definition. Too many people see high def. as just 1080p. How broad is broad?...how high is high? How can a term so vague be pinned down when there is so much variance?
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|I think you guy's are missing the BIG PICTURE? There is already in place and using (Internet 2) Granted its only for Paramedics, and hospitals but all new addresses lighting fast speeds, This would be a good thing if done correctly, Everybody doubted internet in the 90's, Never will catch on well look @ it now, Its the only time i ever used the @ button or even thought of using it till 2000 came?
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|Could you please define what "internet 2" actually is? I haven't seen anything that could be referred to as that.
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|Become one with the internet 1.5 and use a search engine http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet2
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|alright....read it.
It's a commercial advertising for an organization. I read NOTHING that indicates a new form of internet worthy of the title "Internet2". It is infact the name of an organization. The technologies discussed in that article are used in all things internet PERIOD and are not specific to anything that is "next generation" or anything that could be referred to as "Internet 2". Faster Internet by way of fiber is the direction taken by most ISP's that deliver anything more than dialup already. Ok, I'll accept the use of and need for higher bandwidth by researchers, scientists, university, and government bodies. But, this title throws people off and makes people think things that are NOT true. Making the Internet faster and giving it higher bandwidth capacity does NOT qualify a next generation term like "Internet 2" when it is infact the exact same thing only faster. Especially when 'faster' is what everything is getting already (as Internet 1). Hell, cable companies use fiber and so do telephone companies in order to provide Internet access to all people. There is nothing 2.0 about any of this.
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|"Internet 2" is just a network used by researchers, schools and the like. I'm surprised you haven't heard of it. Betanews itself has had a few stories about P2P use in schools that have it.
It's not really separate from "the internet", it's simply specific connected nodes on it that depending on where you are connecting from and to will get you much greater speeds.
Check Here [Internet2.edu]
and..
Here [same, but a direct link to their "lan speed record".]
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|I never said that I have never heard of it...I asked for something more specific in reference to it being mentioned. It's kinda hard to be part of this for any length of time and not hear about it. I just simply consider it to be a lie. Just like network neutrality. These things do not mean what their name suggests. I am sorry if this offends anyone here...it just bothers me that so many people get so worked up and caught up into things that are not real. Internet 2 is not some new next generation form of internet and network neutrality is not going to make life better for the user base en mass. The only people that are going to take away network neutrality (which has been part of the internet from the beginning) are the governments of the world. Words do have meanings and these words do not mean what people think they mean.
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|multiple internets...
**** are these folks just this insane?
why ruin a good thing, i don't even get...
why can't we have normal people in office
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|I wonder if it has something to do with "controlling" the Internet in case of an emergency, as the executive branch has posited in a bill before congress.
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|one can protect the internet w/o f*cking it up ;P
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