Internet2 and You 83
eldavojohn writes "With a name like Internet2 and such high press coverage, you might think that's the future of the Internet servicing our homes. But Ars Technica looks more closely at what the odds actually are for it to become mainstream. When will you see the effects of the software, planning and hardware that went into Internet2 in your home? The odds are the very distant future — if at all. From the article: 'The Internet as we now know it is anything but obsolete. The amount of dedicated hardware and personal attention required to get networks like Internet2 and DANTE working simply makes them uneconomical for most common uses. And, unless a majority of networked content moves onto these dedicated networks, then having access to them may not do users much good. If the academic networks change the commercial ones, they'll do it in an evolutionary way, by providing improved hardware and better software for running traffic within the constraints of the existing economic structure.'"
Remember when the Internet was like that. (Score:5, Insightful)
Before the world wide web, when the internet was mainly news groups, uucp and email (with pling addresses [wikipedia.org], because there was no dns for routing. I used to think how great it would be if ordinary people could afford to connect, not just academic institutions and large technology companies. The cost ad difficulty of configuration was prohibitive.
This is where internet2 is currently. It doesn't mean it will be in a couple of decades.
Which is exactly the point of Internet2 (Score:5, Insightful)
The "Internet" isn't your "broadband" provider. It's the interconnects between networks. Just like the interstates and all the developments in building/maintaining those have very little to do with the street and driveway you use daily, Internet2 has very little to do with the IP connection to your home.
I'm completely unshocked (Score:5, Insightful)
More than just the network (Score:2, Insightful)
Internet2 has been on Slashdot a number of times. Each time people focus on the network. To me be fair the networking stuff is kind of cool. They're doing some interesting things; tackling some hard problems, providing feedback to hardware vendors that makes their products a bit better, dealing with various political aspects of international networking. All nice things.
However, the networking group is only one of 5 areas within the Internet2 group. Some of the areas are real stinkers and, as best as I've ever been able to tell, produce nothing of value. Others though do. Years ago I saw a presentation from the engineering group about various TCP/IP projects they were working on. Some dealt with intelligent back-off algorithms, some with various aspects of IPv6, a few with QoS that actually worked. The Middleware group, with which I work, has produced some nice work to help educational institutions record basic person information in a standard way (doesn't sound very exciting but it can sure help if you're an app writer). The Shibboleth project, and the related OpenSAML project, deal with making user data available in a secure and privacy preserving way (in theory it wold preclude any more lost laptops with millions of user records). It has seen adoption by various schools, governments, realtor software vendors, and others.
So, the point, I guess, is that it's not just about the network. Another point is that I doubt I2 will be around much longer. The recent failure to merge with NLR, a process that was like watching two of the greasiest used car salemens try to screw each other over, was probably the death toll.