Elon University

Archives: Expert Predictions

Influencing the Shape of the Information Infrastructure

With the trend to commercial networking and more indirect governmental involvement, the use of infrastructure procurement decisions to control and plan the Internet’s growth will end. This is a critical problem in the transition to commercial services. Without some other means to provide overall guidance for Internet planning, chaotic growth may effectively disable the Internet and prevent future success … the federal government [must] leave a clear line of succession for the oversight of the Internet … A fight over ownership of the Internet architecture, which could easily occur in the power vacuum left if the federal government were to withdraw further, would be intolerably destructive, jeopardizing the future role of the Internet as part of the foundation for the NII.

Influencing the Shape of the Information Infrastructure

No organization at the moment holds the charter to set a global vision of the NII. The Internet Society represents one effort to provide coherence in this dimension … Since the current broad base of stakeholders precludes direct control by the government, the government must decide what organizations it will support to bring into existence a vision for the NII as well as the supporting standards, and it must work internationally to establish the working relationships and the mandates that can make the NII a reality.

Leadership in Education

Specifically expanding and empowering the Advanced Research Projects Agency (ARPA) and NSF to contribute more broadly to the NII could assure a dynamic outlook on the underlying technology and architecture as well as prepare for the ongoing process (including specification, implementation, and support) of upgrading that technological base.

Leadership in Education

The vision of the Open Data Network is not a lowest-common-denominator approach: it incorporates a need for an evolving low end, but it lays the foundation for a richer construct for the future. The challenge for the country is to shape the architecture of the network so that the NII that results meets not just short-term commercial objectives, but also longer-term societal needs. It is important to appreciate these differences in outlook now, since progress dictates that rough agreement on an NII vision be achieved sooner rather than later.

Leadership in Education

This existing set of involved parties is bewilderingly large and diverse, and it is growing. It is also fragmented … A consequence of the broadening and fragmentation is that the concerns of the research, education, and library communities are not consistently addressed and are in danger of not being heard.

Paying the Price

The federal government now has a unique opportunity to build on [the success of NREN] through investment to further advance the underlying technologies (to support the technological underpinnings for the services that will ride over the network(s) and to connect users with the information they seek) and to develop quality information resources (e.g., databases consisting of government information or modules for educational curricula for which information infrastructure is a tool) that will further the use of the networks.

Paying the Price

There is a clear opportunity for the federal government to act as a catalyst for wise development of the NII and as an arbiter among the various interests that must be balanced for the NII to serve a broad array of national needs. The federal government must effect a delicate balance between the free-for-all chaos likely to result from a hands-off posture and the overcontrolled bureaucratic process that can result from being too heavy-handed.

Paying the Price

The ideal pricing structure is likely to change over time. The argument for flat-fee charging, in the near term, to stimulate experimentation and use, extends beyond the research and education communities to business and the general public. Usage-sensitive pricing might be preferable in the long run, when network-based applications are as mature and familiar as voice telephony, photocopying, postal service, and other information-related transactions for which usage-sensitive charging already exists.