Several months ago, McKinsey did a very interesting study on the economic value of the Internet. It pointed out that the Internet "industry" is now bigger than agriculture or energy in G8 countries. The Internet represents 3.4 percent of GDP and accounted for 21 percent of GDP growth over the last five years in Brazil, China, India, South Korea, and Sweden -- where, as Vint Cerf pointed out in a blog of his own, the Internet also created 2.6 jobs for every one lost.
In light of all this, it is interesting to note that many governments have a variety of research and financial support programs for agriculture, energy, and other sectors, but they hardly spend any R&D money on the greatest job engine in the economy -- the Internet.
Sure, there are some funding programs and research initiatives in telecoms, computation, and related fields. But R&D support for future Internet specifically is very small in comparison. Given the importance of the Internet to our future economy and job creation, one would think governments should make more than a token investment in this field.
The future Internet spans a number of activities, from pure research initiatives, such as GENI
and FIRE, to production facilities that involve deployment of working networks. The deployment of real working, next-generation Internet networks with an early adopter community to my mind is probably the most important of all these activities. This is where National Research and Education Networks
(NRENs) play a critical role.
This is how the early Internet started. A landmark study undertaken by University of Toronto researchers showed that the adoption and growth of the commercial Internet was driven in its early stages by recently graduated students who had been exposed to the benefits of the Internet at their respective universities and community colleges.
There are many viewpoints on what is the role and purpose of NRENs. Some feel that they should be simple aggregators of traffic and deliver the lowest cost possible Internet service to the research and education community. Others believe that NRENs should focus on supporting e-science and the demands of big data flows from instruments and high performance computing. Still others advocate that NRENs should be the backbone of all public sector service delivery, such as education, healthcare, and government services.
While all these roles are very important for NRENs, it is my belief these none of them should be considered an end objective in their own right. In my opinion, the most important role for NRENs is to lay down the foundation for development of the most important sector of the economy -- the future Internet -- by deploying advanced networks and services for the most demanding and largest early adopter community in the world -- the research and education sector. Exposing researchers and, most importantly, students to innovative applications, unconstrained bandwidth, new wireless services, open data, digital collections, federated identity, clouds, green IT, etc., will give them the insight to take this experience to the outside world when they graduate and start their careers.
The biggest transfer of knowledge between academia and society is not through science journals. Nor is it through patents or commercializing of academic research. The biggest transfer of knowledge between academia and industry and society occurs once a year at graduation.
The future economy is increasingly going to be based on Internet services and applications in all sectors and industries. Countries that expose students to the latest Internet innovation and are comfortable collaborating and working on the future of the Internet will reap the rewards of a stronger economy and greater job growth.
— Bill St. Arnaud, telecommunications analyst and frequent speaker on the future of the Internet and broadband
Research on argiculture and other industries likely arises from their reliance on governments' control of public resources like land and environmental regulations... but the Internet is a bit more removed from public resources than other industries b/c it doesn't exist on much government-controlled land. Certainly, the internet is subject to gov't regulations, so it should be researched so that regulations that make sense are implemented (and ones like SOPA which make no sense are not passed)...
But the majority of the internet exists on privately-owned servers and optical fiber and datacenters, so government-backed research on these things are not so easy to fund or implement.
I don't disagree that government has its own agenda, but the private sector has a heavy stake in that. Private sector handles a lot of tasks for the government so the government has to take care of the private sector as well. Hence the reason why they lobby, its because they know it works and through that they can control what happens in the legislative arm of government.
However the private sector plays a big role in steering government actions to promote the industry through lobbying and advising the government on the technical issues.
@Kicheko, No doubt private sector plays a very crucial role in moulding the governments opinion, but the fact is government has its own motive behind those decisions. For example many people in private sector feel Internet freedom is important but many government's feel its necessary to control the internet freedom.
Governments' R&D efforts will at best be very minimal while their focus will be on trying to mark their regulatory stamp on the internet.
@Paul, I totally agree with you. Infact this process has already started. For example in India which is a democratic country, government has already asked social networking sites to regulate the content of their website. This is really a dangerous trend.
A Professor or Researcher with a budget is essentially a small business. And given grants to research of science can create jobs because it's usually more specific a task than say manufacturing, which has become efficient and is also easily replicated and made productive (meaning, fewer workers needed).
Yes, the Internet would be a fertile ground for research grants that let small organizations and individuals get access to capital and utilitize it. Imagine being able to sit down at the web itself, create an topic for research using a simple web form, and finding out about getting a grant the very next day!
Industry driven R&D should indeed be more innovative and practical because it is based on real life problems and current affairs while academia has a tendency to take a more imaginative approach.
In IT, in coming years i see a lot of that focus shifting to mobile as well. i.e. mobile internet, mobile security, application development and everything else on that line.
Indeed the role of government is mostly as facilitator. Balancing out funds to what matters more for the economy while limiting what matters less.
However the private sector plays a big role in steering government actions to promote the industry through lobbying and advising the government on the technical issues.
"How can we make sure that the role of the government stops at R&D, what if the governments try to take control of the Internet in the name of Research ?"
I don't see an internet future wherein government role would stop only at R&D. Governments' R&D efforts will at best be very minimal while their focus will be on trying to mark their regulatory stamp on the internet. I see Cybersecurity as one major area most likely to receive governments' R&D $$$.
Excellent reminder, Bob Acker. You're spot on. That said, though, big networking tech often comes from government R&D projects like NRENs -- since government has a huge stake in the security and innovation of a worldwide Internet.
Ah, great point, AnandY. I think security is always a key driver of government investment in the Internet. Perhaps we'd be surprised at what is actually being funded by the CIA.
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Many academic researchers have argued that a public cloud would never be a suitable option for many large-scale high-performance computing (HPC) applications, especially due to concerns about consistent performance.
Many Internet networks -- regional, educational, and commercial -- are moving away from the hierarchical structures that exist today. The trend is toward a more heterogeneous mix of networking solutions, including hierarchical, federated, and virtual resources.
While I have been extremely skeptical of many claims made about the current generation of smart-meter/smart-grid products, I now believe there are some significant opportunities with some upcoming technology, especially in the 400Hz power space.
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While NFC's original goal was to enhance mobile commerce applications, it is finding its way into a number of other uses, which is creating both opportunity as well as challenges for IT departments.
Enterprises would like to move to cloud computing but are hesitant because they are concerned about providers’ ability to secure company data. Here are some tips that help to ensure that if breaches occur, the business is not left holding the bag.
Edmunds separates customers into segments based on the info it collects on its site and from partners, and uses that to push out custom content, said Brian Baron, director of business analytics for Edmunds.com, at Predictive Analytics Innovation Summit.
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