What are the key goals of the Next Generation Internet Initiative?
From the administration’s point of view, there are three. The first has to do with bandwidth: How do we get 100 universities connected to the Internet at 100 times the current speed, and a small number of other sites connected at 1,000 times the current speed? The second goal is investing in networking technology like resource reservation, multi-casting and scaling so that the Internet will not only be 100 times faster but have 100 times more devices attached to the network. It is not something an ordinary end-user would interact with, but it is absolutely essential to the operation of the network. The third goal is to demonstrate a series of applications called distributive computing and to set up “collaboratories,” which will allow researchers around the country to interact as if they were in the same building. The idea isn’t just to make AOL’s life and that of the average Internet user easier? No, we’re not interested in funding commodity research. With Internet II, we’re talking ab
