The Internet 2

Now, more than 100 academic institutions are involved on the Internet 2 project. Also IBM and SUN are involved. And MCI and Cisco (who build about the 70 per cent of routers which are on the net!). The Internet 2 will be about 1000 times faster than the present net! But it seems that users will pay this fast service, and costs will be proportional to quality of service. So next scene will be: on the one hand, people who can't spend so much money and who will use the Internet, and on the other hand people (universities, research departments) - who can spend much more money - who will use the Internet 2. The Internet was born to provide fast connection among USA's Defense Department computers, and then, universities found out that they could use that means to improve communication among researchers; so, NSF (National Science Foundation http://www.nsf.gov) pushed to develop that net (originally called Arpanet: acronyms of Advanced Research Project Architecture NETwork)...Now the Internet is often too slow and busy, and researchers - who need very quick connections to exchange data - can't use it helpfully anymore...So they are developing the Internet 2. The key of this new net, will be the new IP (Internet Protocol) version: IPv6 (called 'next generation'). The present IPv4, allows 'only' 4000000000 addresses...The next generation IPv6 protocol, allows something like 2 raised to the 128 power! Well, try to compute it, I think it's enough...To know more about the Internet 2, look at: http://www.internet2.edu.

Index Home Back About Contact us!