The Next Internet

A leading advocate of radical change in the Internet says research solutions will across the dual concepts of replace and revamp.

   Technology Review: The problems with the Internet are fairly well understood. What are the basic views of what needs to be done at a technical level?

• There is universal agreement that creating the "Future Internet," which meets the demands of the 21st century, is both a national priority and ripe with research challenges and opportunities. But there are two general schools of thought as to how to pursue this goal said by Larry Peterson.

   One view is that we may be the Internet's social utility of the inflection point erosion trust, reduce innovation, and slowing rate of update. This view focuses on assumptions built into today's 30-year-old architecture that limit its ability to cope with emerging threats and opportunities, and argues that it is time for a "clean slate" re-conceptualization of the Internet architecture.

   The other view takes today's Internet as a given, and argues that future innovation will come in the form of new services and applications running on top of the Internet. Over time, these innovations will likely have a transformational effect on the Internet, but [this argument goes] it is simply not practical to think in terms of replacing today’s entire Internet infrastructure.