Internet Evolution

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Last update : October 8, 2012
Where is there and how do we get there from here ? was the topic of a panel on Internet Evolution, organized by the Internet Society at IETF 81 in Quebec, Canada.

Evolution occurs as a response to a stimulus. The panel explored different paths that Internet evolution could follow:

  • Natural evolution – letting market forces prevail
  • Top-down regulatory – return to the telco regime
  • Clean slate – repealing the laws of Internet physics
  • Or ?

The following five questions have been answered by seven contributors : Kenjiro Cho, Alissa Cooper, Jon Crowcroft, Geoff Huston, Bill St. Arnaud, Joe Touch and Jonathan Zittrain.

  1. Internet and Innovation : The Internet itself was an innovation and it has served as an open platform for unprecedented innovations in networking, applications and services for years. The data provides evidence that the Internet is becoming ‘flatter’ (increasingly direct interconnection of content and consumer). Is this necessarily part of a trend towards a less-innovative platform ?
  2. P2P Traffic : Is the relative decline in P2P traffic volume indicative of the triumph of business models over technology ?
  3. Dominance of Application Protocols : What is your perception of the import of the increasing dominance of a handful of application protocols—simplification ? ossification ? something else ?
  4. Internet Evolution Trends : What do these observable trends in Internet evolution mean for the future of the Internet ?
  5. Impact on The Future of the Internet : Any other observations or interpretations of these reports in terms of impact and import for the future of the Internet that you would like to share ?

The following links provide further informations about the Internet evolution :