Internet Architectural and Policy Implications for Migration from High-End User to the ‘New User’

A future communications and processing issue that will define the architecture is whether dark fiber – the provision of access from a host to fiber with no telephone company intermediary switching – will become a viable commercial option. Dark fiber could allow intelligent hosts to control the communications processing in a highly distributed fashion using intelligent high-layer protocols. This exemplifies the concept of intelligence at the periphery of the network, namely at the host. This concept states that communications should be minimalist in form: that is, communications providers should do nothing that limits the creativity of the processing hosts’ intelligence and capabilities … Until dark fiber becomes an available commodity, switching will remain a centrally provided host service.

Internet Architectural and Policy Implications for Migration from High-End User to the ‘New User’

Alternative access to mechanisms such as wireless PCS and CATV may lead to the elimination of ISDN. ATM (Asynchronous Transfer Mode, or packetized high speed networks integrating voice and data) switching is another technology change element that has a great deal of potential for expanding local access as well as long-distance access.

Internet Architectural and Policy Implications for Migration from High-End User to the ‘New User’

The emerging demand for multimedia services and the potential mobility of the new user present several challenges to the Internet architecture that may change its elements in an evolutionary sense … The two major dimensions along the Internet change axes are lowered costs and higher capabilities of communications and processing. The new paradigm against which the new architecture will be measured is multiple hosts per user rather than multiple users per host.

Internet Architectural and Policy Implications for Migration from High-End User to the ‘New User’

Multimedia communications and wide-area portable/mobile access for new users will also emphasize the need for more intelligence within the network and not just layers onto the existing protocol suites.

Internet Architectural and Policy Implications for Migration from High-End User to the ‘New User’

The TCP layer focuses on getting a single stream of data through. Modifications can be made for voice or even video streaming, but a full multimedia network is not achievable. An enhanced multimedia TCP/IP-type system will need to be constructed that allows the entire suite of users access to multimedia sessioning, with high data rates and access via fully distributed high-end processing devices, at dramatically lower costs.

Internet Architectural and Policy Implications for Migration from High-End User to the ‘New User’

The network … packetizes data extensively, assuming that it can do so because communications between computers, which are capable of processing the packets. The current assumptions are that data from one location are independent of data from other locations. In a multimedia environment, this will no longer be the case. Data will be virtually aggregated into a compound multimedia object, thus creating a virtual multimedia object whose elements may be from a disparate set of users on the Internet. For instance, my mouse movement at one location will be related to my voice at another and a third party’s video at a third. The concatenation and orchestration of these disparate entities will be viewed as a single totality.

Internet Architectural and Policy Implications for Migration from High-End User to the ‘New User’

Fiber networks will soon allow gigabit-per-second transmission, and high-resolution images and video will be integrated into complex multimedia objects. This will require a significant rethinking of what the object control must look like and the development of new and innovative protocols.

Internet Architectural and Policy Implications for Migration from High-End User to the ‘New User’

Designers will be able to assume error-free transmission and will be able to send large blocks of data, such as video, in mega-packets. The delay in the network will be minimized, and multimedia conferencing will become a reality. On the other hand, the new wireless communications services may not have higher data rates until their designers better understand how to deal with multipath from many buildings and other radio propagation factors that cause errors and reduce transmission rates. Thus the network must handle error-free fiber combined with error-free wireless.