Realizing the Information Future The Internet and Beyond (1994) / Chapter Skim
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Pages 204-236
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From page 204... ...
communications and information infrastructure. Pursuing that opportunity is an enormous undertaking, and the long-lived investments and interdependencies involved emphasize the need for effective up-front consideration of technical aspects and of striking a balance among many interests.
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From page 205... ...
The federal government now has a unique opportunity to build on that success through investment to further advance the underlying technologies (to support the technological underpinnings for the services that will ride over the networks and to connect users with the information they seek) and to develop quality information resources (e.g., databases consisting of government information or modules for educational curricula for which information infrastructure is a tool)
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From page 206... ...
to explore areas where policy may need to be formulated or changed and to gather inputs from within and outside the government; · Accelerated and expanded the use of information infrastructure within the federal government (for dissemination of government-generated information and services to the public, communication within the government, and communication between the government and the public) ; and · Begun to use the federal budget process to define and redefine the national interest, notably by expanding the HPCC program in 1993 to include the Information Infrastructure Technology and Applications (IITA)
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From page 207... ...
Fundamental to the challenge of providing leadership and vision is the committee's perception that there is a gap between the NREN and NII visions, with the NII even less defined than was the NREN. Specifically, the NREN program has focused on the physical wires, switches, and network problems; the NII focuses on a larger, more complex infrastructure involving people, processes, and information resources that exploit the network.
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From page 208... ...
Here there must be a recognition that the information infrastructure will fail to reach its potential if in its development we forget these key communities. There is a need for guidelines and oversight to make sure that we take care of NREN constituencies—the research, education, and library communities during the transition.
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From page 209... ...
Providing such services, in turn, requires a highly organized effort to create the software, secure state government and community approval of materials and instructional environment, train thousands of teachers, and provide handson assistance to teachers confronting new applications.9 Integrating networking into education also requires an ongoing program of research into the design and implementation of infrastructure technology and applications for education, because the problem of providing and supporting access to network-based resources in education is larger and also contains more unknowns than support for research networking. The introduction of the IITA component into the HPCC program has infused resources and talent into this research area, although the proliferation of educational applications activities among research agencies raises questions about direction and the potential for duplication of effort.
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From page 210... ...
Consistent with recent legislative proposals and the selection of education as one of the emphases in the National Information Infrastructure initiative, the committee recommends the following: The federal government, through the Department of Education, should take a leadership role in articulating to other federal agencies, state departments of education, and other members of the education community the objectives and the benefits of networking in K-12 education. It should define a national agenda that can guide efforts at the state and local level.
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From page 211... ...
They include the federal government; the state governments; schools, libraries, universities, and other educational institutions; regional and other mid-level network providers; and the commercial sector, including both providers and users of network-based services and other nongovernmental organizations. There are thus a large number of stakeholders that include, or will be affected by the actions of, the major entities that will most directly shape elements of the information infrastructure.
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From page 212... ...
and its associated advisory committee (FNCAC) ; federal mission agencies whose programmatic needs drive network implementation in their portions of the NREN program; and an assortment of private entities, including trade, professional, and advocacy groups, such as the Council on Competitiveness, the Telecommunications Policy Roundtable, the Coalition for Networked Information, EDUCOM, the Electronic Frontier Foundation, Computer Professionals for Social Responsibility, the Computer Systems Policy Project, the Internet Society, the Cross-Industry Working Team, and so on, as well as direct representation from the entertainment, cable, telephone and other telecommunications, and information-providing and publishing industries.~3 This existing set of involved parties is bewilderingly large and diverse, and it is growing.
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From page 213... ...
The evolution of the narrower NREN program illustrates this problem. Although there is an interagency communication mechanism in the form of the FNC, and its associated FNCAC, as well as the larger HPCC coordination processes,~4 this committee is concerned that there is no truly effective mechanism for coordination of NREN efforts among agencies that is guided by input from the research and education communities.
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From page 214... ...
Officials distinguish this mission Tom He research and development coord~ahon acOvides and respons~iDties of the HPCCIT, Mach has overseen the NREN program and other elements of He HPCC program.l6 The TPWC is at least potenhaUy a bridge to He technical expertise and agency representahon with He HPCCIT and other components of the National Sconce and Tec~oF ogy CouncH ~peciOcaNy, He CIC) under the OSTP.
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In addition to the NII's intrinsic dependence on technology (see "Influencing the Shape of the Information Infrastructure," below) , the IITF's current regulatory and legal emphases themselves have technical dimensions.
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NII creation still presents lead~ng-edge research challenges and is very Interdisciplinary, arenas In which ARPA, In particular, has succeeded, and to which NSF can contribute substantially through its support of both network research and network-based research.20 RECOMMENDATION: Leadership and Guidance The vision of a national information infrastructure (NII) as articulated by the administration emphasizes sigruficant U.S.
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The Information Infrastructure Task Force (IITF) , which focuses on policy issues, is not sufficient for this role; from the perspective of realizing the ODN architecture, it raises three concerns: (1)
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Even more importantly, the prospect of broader international connection underscores the need to address issues that will arise with information-oriented applications, which will be affected by differences in legal regimes, values, and so on. Intellectual property rights, transborder data flow,22 privacy, and security are among the areas that will present challenges for the international information infrastructure, challenges that U.S.
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The issue of a more active government role in setting standards is
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, a view captured in a Wall Street Journal editorial contending that "it is truly hubris for these politicians to think they can somehow fine tune or stage manage the rapidly developing world of advanced technologies."26 Even within government, opinions differ as to the appropriate timing and direction of standards setting. For example, a Federal Communications Commission official participating in a forum on wireless communications observed that the FCC preferred encouraging to mandating standards in a new industry, while an NTIA official was quoted as asking whether the FCC should do more than provide encouragement.27 On the other hand, standardization has been immature and conflict or lack of consensus has been apparent in such cross-cutting concerns as management, security, and network naming, areas where industry-driven standardization may be neither sufficient nor sufficiently timely.
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From page 221... ...
role has diminished to the point that it no longer appears that the government can simply "turn off" the Internet by removing payment; the governmentfunded portions have shrunk compared to other portions as the entirety has grown. With the trend to commercial networking and more indirect governmental involvement, the use of infrastructure procurement decisions to control and plan the Internet's growth will end.
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as a means to interconnect future service providers.33 Whether these aspects of the solicitation are technically correct (and there is some criticism of them from commercial providers) , it must be understood that this is the last
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With this second NSFNET solicitation, the government is effectively out of the business of overseeing the Internet. Influence on Network Deployment and Technology Development It is important to recognize the benefits of direct governmental involvement in network deployment.
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From page 224... ...
Approach to Operational Networks and Intermediate Technologies At the other end of the spectrum, for networks that are operational and that do not represent an advance in the current state of the art, it seems reasonable to have the users pay directly, as they might pay for telephone or cable TV access. Direct government funding of such networks seems inappropriate, although government subsidies to research and education users may be desirable (see Chapter 5~.
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From page 225... ...
These arguments continued into 1994 in the context of proposed legislation aimed at nurturing information infrastructure.36 The arguments raised by the commercial providers seem to suggest that this middle region of maturing technology does not exist. Government has been urged by carriers and other commercial service providers to divide all networks into research networks and operational networks, with a sharp demarcation between them.37 This crisp distinction is not realistic, and it potentially hurts the development of evolving technology.
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The U.S. leadership in data network technology seems directly related to its preeminence in research in this area, and the committee would urge a continued program in experimental network research for this reason.
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From page 227... ...
A number of key areas in which specific technical innovation is required in order to accomplish the goals of the NII are discussed in Chapter 2. These key areas include the following: · Core architectural issues for the NII, including the definition and validation of a suitable bearer service, a framework for security, and solutions to key problems in scaling, such as addressing, routing, management, heterogeneity, and mobility;
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From page 228... ...
Such capabilities will be key to the evolution of the NII into yet more powerful and useful constructs over fume. In addition to a directed effort addressing the specific technical needs of the NII, a broad program of advanced network research should be maintained, as the committee has recommended In Chapter 2.40 CONCLUSION The NII initiative presents exciting opportunities for the federal government to reap far greater returns from the NREN program than those experienced to date and to meet a broad range of social and economic needs.
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4. Until now, federal investment has not played a big role in developing information resources compared to private investment, except in scientific research and certain government information arenas.
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1994. High Performance Computing and Communications: Toward a National Information Infrastructure.
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The extension of such sharing to other, commercial service providers raises questions about funds flows, the prospects for some kind of settlement arrangements (as is currently found in telephony) , and implications for arrangements, such as the voucher concept discussed in Chapter 5, that direct funds to service providers.
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From page 232... ...
820, enfolding S.4, included Title VI, the "Information Technology Applications Act of 1994," the origins of which date to legislation proposed by Albert Gore as a Senator in 1992. Section 102 amends the High-Performance Computing Act of 1991 provisions for the NREN program, indicating that program funds should be targeted to acquisition of commercially available communications networking services; "customized" services may be contracted for if commercial services are not available.
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O 39. CSTB is currently assessing the HPCC program, pursuant to a legislative request.
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