Future of the internet

The internet is still in its infancy, lets try and foresee where it might be in the next decade.

Faster Internet

The Web can be painfully slow. Most people still connect to the Internet using 56 Kbps modems and telephone lines.

There is expected to be a steady increase in higher bandwidth connections using ADSL, using fiber optic lines and via cable TV and satellite and radio connections.

This faster internet will be matched by an increase in applications that require higher bandwidth to operate. Such application take to form of Voice calls, audio transmissions, videoconferencing and virtual 3-D environments and movies on demand.

Internet2

Internet 2 is often talked about as a faster parallel just around the corner. In the short term it is an incubator for many of the emerging technologies that are shaping the future. Formed in 1996 and administered by the University Corporation for Advanced Internet Development (UCAID), Internet2 is a partnership between universities, corporations and US government agencies.

Internet2 is a not a single network, but a consortium of hundreds of high-speed networks linked by fiber optic backbones that span the United States and link to other countries. It transmits data at speeds up to 2.4 gigabits per second allowing scientists to test their laboratory discoveries in the real world. It should be available for commercial use in a few years.

IPv6

IP version 6 (IPv6) is a new version of the Internet Protocol, the language our computers use to talk to each other. It will be a successor to the current IP version 4.

Simple arithmetic tells us that the maximum of 4 billion public addresses allowed by the current Internet. (IP version 4) will simply be inadequate in the future. If the Internet is truly for everyone, we need more addresses.

The world will be home to about 9 billion people in 2050 and the pervasive use of networked devices will probably mean many devices per person. IPv6 will accommodate at least 35 trillion IPv6 sites which should keep the world going for a while. The upgrade is a more pressing issue in some parts of the world and not others due to unfair allocation of present address.

Everything connected

While PCs were once the primary means of accessing the Internet, we're now seeing Internet-enabled devices such as pagers and cell phones that send and receive e-mail and access the Web. In the future, everything from your car to your refrigerator will be connected and communicating with each other wirelessly.

Electrolux, best known for its vacuum cleaners, has developed the Screen Fridge, an Internet icebox that manages your pantry, among other things. It e-mails a shopping list to your local supermarket and coordinates a convenient delivery time with your schedule.

Security

The Internet will continue to be infected by viruses and hackers, and there will be more security scares and privacy issues to deal with. It is not a utopian world. Likewise more resources will need to be devoted to internet crime and the average user will be more alert to problem areas. We have all learnt not to walk unlit streets at night in big city centers.

We have never seen a major collapse of part of the Internet by willful attack. It will happen and the headlines will predict the end of technology. The net is very resilient - it was designed to be so.

Governance

Diplomatic discussions continue on who should govern the internet. The Second World Summit on the Information Society which took place in Tunis last month was no exception.

Many are happy with the current system in which the California based Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (www.Icann.org) oversees the running of the net's addressing system. Others, particularly delegates from developing nations, resent Icann's role and the fact that the US has control of the internet in their own countries.

Issues concern the administration of the thirteen top level (or "root") servers that control all routing to individual domains. Most of these servers are situated within the US, and are administered by the US government in partnership with California based ICANN. Without agreement, the Internet could fragment into different networks, which may not even be compatible with each other. Perhaps this is why the US prefers to keep its hand on the tiller rather than pass over to some sort of UN control.

Semantic Web

Tim Berners-Lee the inventor of the world wide web is now working on a semantic web that tells you the meaning of the results the web search throws up.

"When you've got a black board and you are trying to explain something to someone, you start drawing circles and arrows between them. Often people try to make it into a tree to help keep their minds straight, but really it's a web."

It's all about a web which understand the meaning of pages and creates special links which reflect that understanding.

Lets leave Tim to it for now and try and understand It when It Is finished!