[CAnet - news] Why research into the future of the Internet is critical

[I highly recommend taking a look at the YouTube video being distributed by
the FTTh council and also listening to radio interview of Jon Crowcroft
listed below.  The FTTh council video is ideal for politicians and policy
makers as it provides a very high level perspective of the Internet and its
current challenges. It offers compelling evidence of the coming "exo-flood"
of data that will hit the Internet, largely due to the distribution of
video.  They rightly argue that today's Internet is incapable of supporting
this tsunami of data, particularly in the last mile - and that new network
architectures and business models are required.

Jon Crowcroft's interview is quite interesting in that he claims that heat
loading at data centers will make distribution of video through traditional
client server models impossible, and that peer to peer (P2P) will be the
only practical way of distributing such content. In testament to that fact
there is an explosion of new companies gearing up to deliver video and other
content via P2P including Joost, Vudu, etc. This is why many argue that the
traditional telco NGN architecture with IPTV is doomed to failure. But P2P
imposes its own sort of problems on today's Internet architectures as
witnessed by the attempts of many service providers to limit P2P traffic or
ban it outright.

If P2P is indeed going to be the major mode of delivery of data, especially
for video then we need to explore new Internet architectures. As Van
Jacobson has pointed out - too much network research is focused on the
Internet as a traditional telecommunications medium of  "channels" from A to
B. As a result Internet research, especially in the optical and network
world is largely about topology optimization, network layers, reliability,
redundancy, etc  

Universities to my mind should be at the forefront of exploring ways to
build and deploy a new Internet - not only for the research community, but
for the global community as well.  But sadly many universities are also
trying to restrict P2P traffic, and in some cases act as the snarling guard
dog for the RIAA and MPAA.  Students at universities are the early adopters
of new technology (much more so than their ageing professors)- rather than
discouraging their behaviour -we should see them as an opportunity to test
and validate new Internet architectures and services. See my presentation at
Net@Edu on some thoughts on this topic

P2P may fundamentally reshape our thinking of network architectures such as
enabling the end user to do their own traffic engineering and network
optimization to reach the closest P2P node or transit exchange point.

Thanks to Olivier Martin for the pointer to YouTube Video and Dewayne
Hendricks for a multitude of other pointers -- BSA]


FTTH Council Video
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c4988qaCvvM

Jon Crowcroft Interview
http://blogs.guardian.co.uk/podcasts/2007/04/science_weekly_for_april_30.htm
l

A good article on the current challenges of P2P running on today's networks
http://blogs.nmss.com/communications/2007/04/realworld_p2p_j.html

A very interesting read of why IPTV is doomed to failure:
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2007/04/22/iptv_services/  

Ohio university bans P2P 
http://gizmodo.com/gadgets/home-entertainment/ohio-university-bans-all-p2p-a
ctivity-riaa-cackles-maniacally-255525.php

Van Jacobson's talk
http://lists.canarie.ca/pipermail/news/2007/000374.html

How Universities can play a leading role in Next Generation Internet
http://www.canarie.ca/canet4/library/recent/Net_Edu_Phoenix_Feb_5_2007.ppt
and
http://www.canarie.ca/canet4/library/recent/Terena_Feb_22_2007.ppt


This Internet TV program is brought to you by ...
Joost, the Internet television service being developed by the  
founders of Skype, has lined up several blue-chip advertisers,  
including United Airlines, Microsoft, Sony Electronics and Unilever,  
as it prepares for its introduction.

<http://www.nytimes.com/2007/04/26/business/media/26adco.html? 
ex=1335240000&en=0f79f30914fff112&ei=5090&partner=rssuserland&emc=rss>



NY times article on Vudu and its P2P plans
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/04/26/business/media/26adco.html?ex=1335240000&e
n=0f79f30914fff112&ei=5090&partner=rssuserland&emc=rss


 
 








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