Citation
Schwartz, D.G. (2003), "Focusing on the network", Internet Research, Vol. 13 No. 2. https://doi.org/10.1108/intr.2003.17213baa.001
Publisher
:Emerald Group Publishing Limited
Copyright © 2003, MCB UP Limited
Focusing on the network
Focusing on the network
One of the gratifying benefits of sitting in the editor's chair is seeing the development of scientific communities and centre's of research over time. The International Network Conference, having completed its third biennial conference, is one such endeavor.
The conference has consistently attracted a large pool of quality research, and the Journal of Internet Research is once again privileged to be able to select the leading papers to bring to you. This special issue of Internet Research highlights some of the important initiatives helping create the next generation of the terrestrial and mobile Internet. Research questions regarding multicasting and security, network addressing and protocols are at the forefront.
Are you ready to move from IPv4 to the new IPv6 protocol? Perhaps after reading what Bouras et al. have to say about transition strategies, you will be able to start preparation. Have you considered the next generation of multicasting implementation? Papers by Mannaert et al. and Wei-qiang Sun et al. present a number of the research and application issues related to the promising new multicasting techniques.
The growing use of multicasting in both the terrestrial and mobile Internet requires the use of new protocols and Stuer et al.'s multi-peer protocol design is an important step forward in this area. Miladinovic and Stadler's work on Closed Conference Signaling builds on the use of Session Initiation Protocol for multiparty conferences.
From one of the International Network Conference's traditional strengths, Internet security, we bring three contributions. Securing the infrastructure for online course delivery is the subject of an article by Yau et al.; Prevelakis and Keromytis address security for distributed portable computing elements; and securing multimedia services in a mobile environment is investigated by Horn et al.
Steve Furnell and his team at the University of Plymouth Network Research Group, have worked long and hard at both organizing the Conference and preparing this special issue of Internet Research. Thank you once again, Steve, for a job well done.
David G. Schwartz