One thing that easy to forget is that we actually have the next version of the Internet in operation at the moment.  It is called the Internet2, and is a very clear picture as to where the commodity Internet we all use will go.  If you are not aware of the Internet2, it is a completely new set of infrastructure, standards, and protocols that adds up to a new backbone for carrying Internet traffic at dramatically higher speeds.  The consortium operating the Internet2 includes 212 universities, 70 corporations, and 45 affiliate members.  This does not include the various government entities that normally like to go invisible as to their capabilities.

So how much faster is the Internet 2? Check out the chart at the right to see where we are. Just so you can understand this, most organizations are currently at the 1988 speeds on the chart. The bottom line is that the next generation of the Internet will be MUCH faster than what we currently use. It is now an appropriate time to ask the “so what” question. Good question, and let’s address it.

With faster speeds we will be able to do the following things that are difficult or impossible today: 1 – Deliver a high definition television experience on any sized screen – including multiple screens at the same time in a house.  This will radically alter how we have experienced television to this point because it will just become content that can be delivered to any of the three screens we own. 2 – Further enable cloud computing.  With speed and storage restraints taken off, there will really be little need for an organization to own their own servers and deal with backup and disaster recovery issues.  We will just be able to rent all of our software, all of our processing capabilities and storage.  We will only need a device to display and take input (voice, or keyboard.)  All the files and software we now host on our PC’s and servers will be better off, and easier to manage in the cloud.  We have a good start on this paradigm with what Amazon, Google, IBM and Salesforce.com are already providing.  Internet2 levels of speed will make this model soar. 3 – We will see an explosion of new technologies that do real time monitoring of everything in our lives – aggregated to a Web page.

With no bandwidth constraints, every device in our our lives will output status to a dashboard that we configure to help us run our lives.  Again, we have the beginnings of this model with refrigerators that monitor the status of groceries, cars that have computers to monitor all elements of performance,  and alarm system that can monitor any movement in the house.  With the new level of speed coming, it will become practical to have all of our “things” in life communicate with us so that we can make decisions based on status.

I relish living in a world where I can monitor 100 aspects of my life while I am on the road just by looking at my PDA.  Add a rules based system to give me alerts based on certain conditions of my “things” and my life can start to be on auto pilot.  For example, when the oil needs to be changed in my wife’s car, the vehicle let’s me know and then generates an automatic email to her to remind her.  The possibilities are endless!!!

Scott Klososky
scott@klososky.com