Gridlock

ASEE Prism, Sep 1998 by Davis, Don

Political debate has slowed progress on the Next Generation Internet.

The creation of the Internet, like Alexander Graham Bell's invention of the telephone, precipitated a dramatic change in human communications. Today's electronic information highway connects engineers and scientists to crucial research, children to distant lands, and businesses to a thriving virtual marketplace, all in a matter of seconds.

As the popularity of these applications has grown, so too has the awareness that the Internet will have to become larger, faster, and more secure to accommodate greater volumes of information and an increasing number of users. Today government agencies, universities, and industry are collaborating to build that future network through the Next Generation Internet Initiative (NGI). Introduced by President Bill Clinton on October 10,1996, this initiative envisioned a network with high-speed connections 100 to 1,000 times faster than those currently in place; enhanced capabilities for handling real-time multimedia applications and interactions with supercomputers; and increased bandwidth to enable users to transfer and manipulate larger amounts of data.

What progress has been made toward realizing these goals? The answer is as complicated as the NGI program itself.

Key Players

The National Science and Technology Council coordinates NGI. Its Committee on Computing, Information, and Communications plots overall program strategy, while the subcommittee on Computing, Information, and Communications R&D serves as liaison between the five federal agencies mandated to fund, research, develop, and build the new network: the National Science Foundation, Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), Department of Energy (DOE), NASA, and National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST).

In fiscal year 1998, Congress appropriated a total of $85 million for NGI: $42 million from DARPA, $23 million from NSF, $10 million from NASA, $5 million from NIST, and $5 million from the National Institutes of Health. Thanks in part to this support, some data-gathering facilities using NGI technology are now up and running, including the Earth Observing System (EOS), which gathers and stores weather data. However, most university sites and research facilities remain unconnected to the NGI network, making it impossible for users there to access data like that generated by EOS. These difficulties complicate efforts to incorporate such data into research and educational programs.

Political Bottlenecks

Expanding the NGI network would solve this problem, but debate among congressional leaders and the Clinton administration over the project has stalled the work. Speaking at the Universities Research Association's annual meeting in February, Representative James Sensenbrenner (R-WI) summarized congressional opponents' core concerns, commenting that "the administration's four-page NGI proposal did not inspire action."

The administration released a more detailed proposal in March, which outlined plans to establish two new NGI test beds. The first test bed, built upon NSF's Very High Performance Backbone Network Service, NASA's Research and Education Network, and DOE's Energy Sciences Network, would connect 100 sites 100 times faster than the current network. The second, built upon DARPA's ACTS ATM Internetwork and the Advanced Technology Demonstration Network, would connect 10 sites 1,000 times faster. Potential applications for the new beds include information transfer and program development focused on collaboration technologies, digital libraries, distributed computing, remote operation, and basic science and educational simulations.

Future Funding

This new proposal strengthened congressional support for NGI, but the depth of that support will not become clear until Congress finalizes 1999 appropriations in late fall. Currently, lawmakers are proposing slight overall increases in science and technology funding, making it likely that NGI funding will at the very least remain level. New industry interest in the project, however, could spur further changes in the funding picture. In late April Denver-based Qwest Communications announced that it would provide $500 million worth of transmission services to selected universities interested in connecting to the NGI network. Cisco Systems and Nortel have agreed to supply the necessary hardware to complete the connections.

Don Davis is ASEE'S public affairs associate.