On the Net

Citation

Wynder, N. (1999), "On the Net", Internet Research, Vol. 9 No. 2. https://doi.org/10.1108/intr.1999.17209bag.001

On the Net

February 24, 1999 marks the launch of Internet2, codenamed Abilene ­ a multi-input attempt to create the next-generation research tool for American universities.

The Internet2 project, which has been in concept and implementation stages for five years, is a corporate and academic effort to interconnect 140 US universities and create advanced network applications, allowing collaborative research in many fields.

The real benefit is the ability to conduct real-time research, such as "virtual" medical tasks and lab tests, via the 2.4 Gigabit per second network.

Members contribute a collective US$50 million per year to the project with a view to breaking the bandwidth-barriers of the present Internet structure and allowing massive amounts of data to be transferred nationwide in a fraction of the time.

The project runs on the $500 million "Abilene" backbone, co-developed by the University Corporation for Advanced Internet Development (UCAID) and Nortel Networks, Indiana University, Cisco Systems, and Qwest Communications. The backbone is said to run up to 85,000 times faster than a 56k modem connection.

The US government is also in the process of developing the "Next Generation Internet", which is proposed to be up to 1,000 times faster than the present Internet. The Internet2 is said to run in conjunction with, and be connectable to, the Next Generation Internet.

The Internet2 is not currently available to the general public using the Internet, but the technologies and data-communications methods used should filter-down to corporate interest within the next 12 months, and become commercially available soon afterwards.

As with the original Internet, the investment already made on Internet2 has generally come from US government and academic institutions, instead of the corporate sector.

Why is this? Is it because there are no formal worldwide bodies, collaborations or guidelines in industry to control and enhance the development of this global network? Or does the country that originally developed the Internet wish to retain as much "control" as possible over its development, and reap the financial benefits at the end of the day?

It is known that most technical development, be it in the computer, communications or networking industry, comes from the USA and the Orient. When will the "global" Internet, which is used internationally and paid-for internationally, become an internationally-managed, internationally-developed network, so that the best of all worlds will contribute towards the future of our communications?

Only time will tell. So far, centralized organizations have developed everything we know and use about the Internet, with only minimum input from industry and the corporate sector... let us hope that the "world" can contribute in the near future, and develop a faster, better Internet which the whole world can use.

Noel Wynder Internet Research & Development Centre nwynder@irdc.com