The Internet in 10 Years

Thanks to the IE editorial team for another excellent and very educative 'Big Report'. It seems there is a lot of investmentbeing made currently to upgrade the existing internet infrastructure. I am just wondering what you guys found out in your research for this report whether the current investments in internet infrastructure will match the high bandwidth demands especially at the access level.

Based on your findings do you believe that " the Future of Internetwill just happen, or can we influence its shape? If we can, what values should we seek to uphold? How will technical mechanisms such as IPV6 and policies such as net neutrality change our lives? Is there a way to bring the engineering principles of the IP protocol further up the stack into more advanced layers of services?"

Good questions, Paul.  I am hoping others will wade in with answers and comments.

The most frightening trend, in my view, is the cordoning off of specific countries' Net access, and the creatinon of mini-Internets with restricted access. This trend, along with increased dependence on the Web (a la healthcare digitization) could create the hellish scenario Steve Saunders outlined two years back.

Lots of great questions Paul. I hope the community will chime in on them to expand the discussion. To start, I'll say that I do think we can influence the future's shape, but "we" includes not just us. It includes strong forces like Internet giants (Google), as well as governments and "old media" companies who seek to change the future of the Internet. So it's a matter of who puts up the best fight for the future.

I'd turn the question about values to you: What values would you like to see upheld? Would you preserve anonymity? Would you limit or increase government regulation?

I hope these questions and yours open up a greater discussion with everyone.

"I'd turn the question about values to you: What values would you like to see upheld? Would you preserve anonymity? Would you limit or increase government regulation?"

Thanks Nicole. It is really hard to imagine what our onlinelives will be like 10 years considering the many players who are involved in shaping the future of the internet. I pretty much agree with your projections  but forecasting the future of the internet is a horrible business, even in the short term. I definitely would like to see anonymity preserve.Whilst many will argue that anonymity fuels nefarious activities on the web,a non-anonymous web will definitely be a disaster. I have a secret but perfectly legal online live in many of the sites I visited and I want that right toremain anonymous to be preserve. There is so much benefits anonymity brings to the web that to think some are calling for its end just freak the hell out of me. And who are those calling for its end? Big Tech giants and of course governments.

"The value of international e-commerce has plummeted. Geographically, the Web is now locked into noncommunicative silos. In addition to the official UN Internet, there's an Islamist Internet, carefully controlled by the participating nation states, and a series of technically primitive local Internets established by the governments of North Korea, Burma, the Sudan, and so on. Even more primitive "darknets" have been launched by opponents of the regimes."

This is the most scary prospects of them all. A geogtraphically fragmented internet is not definitely not a nice idea. This is a directly as a result of some governments inability to exercise control over the entire world wide web and in the process deprive their citizenry some aspects of the internet. This may actually change if the internet should come under the U.N. We've witness over the 67 year history of the U.N.how few despotic regimes have hijack the lofty ideals of the UN. to advance their own nefarious control. I just can't even imagine how a UN-control internet will look like but the question we should be asking ourselves is what can Western Powers do to prevent such a scenario from ever happening? I know they themselves are very much showing signs of wanting to control the internet but for them tosupport a UN takeover of the internet will be a very big blow to long term development of the internet.

The US has shown no sign of taking positive action on this, and it really needs to.  It needs to have a rational position developed ahead of the Dubai meetings.  Let's keep an eye on this.

"Russia, China, Iraq, and many other nations that take, at best, an eclectic view of Internet freedom will be in attendance."

You probably mean Iran rather than Iraq, don't you?  Iran is the one that is censoring internet content.

Yes, good catch.  We'll correct it.

Excellent deep thinking, Paul.   This series of blogs are highly though-provoking.

Several points that strike me are:

- The power of the internet.  I believe the extended networking and use, coupled with the compounding information that the web provides, open up entire new vistas of power, information, etc.  I believe this is why it is increasingly capturing political attention, whether from the Arab Spring, China, or our own interests in access to all information for cyber security.

- Moving beyond capacity to making decisions.  The fact that we can no longer keep pace with the evolution or increased capacity that is realized through the internet brings us into a new reality of deciding whats important and how to manage or use the internet.

- The growing realization that data is just pieces of information and that the intelligence is built on information in context and connected with intelligence.  This will help us increase our intellectual capabilities rather than be consumed by data, when equally valuing all data.

- The discovery of how human intelligence can combine with automated intelligence to take advantage of the unique capabilities of each.  So far we view the battle as man against machine.  In reality, the best use is to learn and understand the capabilities of each and how best to use them.

DHagar