A survey of participants’ opinions about issues, trends at the 92nd meeting of the IETF in Dallas, Texas, US
The Internet Engineering Task Force is an open, global, volunteer organization that develops, evolves and promotes Internet standards and the Internet’s smooth operation. More than 1,200 people from 57 countries participated in the IETF meeting in Dallas in 2015.
A team from Elon University’s Imagining the Internet Center conducted interviews at IETF’s 92nd meeting to gather opinions about Internet trends and evolution, identify issues and provide a record of what people thought at the time about the likely future. This page holds links leading to video survey pages including hundreds of video clips from interviews with 83 IETF attendees asked four questions:
1 – THE STATE OF THE INTERNET TODAY: Describe the state of the Internet today by starting out with one of the following weather terms: Is it sunny, partly cloudy or stormy. WHY?
2 – WHAT NEW INTERNET DEVELOPMENTS ARE JUST EMERGING? What are the most important and inspiring new Internet innovations being developed now that could bloom over the next 5 to 10 years?
3 – WHAT IS THE GREATEST INTERNET CONCERN? What is the most important challenge or issue for IETF to address in order to continue to positively develop the Internet as an open, global resource?
4 – ACTION? What action can be taken now or soon to endure the best possible future? Explain.
5 – INTERNET IN A NUTSHELL: Briefly describe the future of the Internet, using only a few words – in five seconds or less.
See a brief highlight video from the interviews.
BACKGROUND on IETF
The IETF mission includes: identifying and proposing solutions to the pressing operational and technical problems in the Internet; specifying the development or usage of protocols and the near-term architecture to solve technical problems; facilitating technology transfer from the Internet Research Task Force to the wider Internet community; and providing a forum for the exhange of relevant information within the Internet community between vendors, researchers, agency contractors and network engineers.
The IETF publishes a document series containing technical and organizational notes known as RFCs or Request for Comments. The basic definition of the IETF standards process is contained in the RFCs. An overview of many process documents is available in The IETF Process: An Informal Guide.
Technical activities in the IETF are addressed within working groups. All working groups are organized roughly by function into seven areas. Each area is led by one or more Area Directors who have primary responsibility for that one area of IETF activity. Together with the chair of the IETF/IESG, these Area Directors comprise the Internet Engineering Steering Group (IESG).
TUTORIALS are available to educate those with an interest in participation in IETF.
The working groups conduct their business during the tri-annual IETF meetings (such as IETF 92 in Dallas in March 2015), at interim working group meetings, and via electronic mail on mailing lists established for each group. The tri-annual IETF meetings are 4.5 days in duration, and consist of working group sessions, training sessions and plenary sessions. The plenary sessions include technical presentations, status reports and an open IESG meeting.
Following each meeting, the IETF Secretariat publishes meeting proceedings, which contain reports from all of the groups that met, as well as presentation slides, where available. The proceedings also include a summary of the standards-related activities that took place since the previous IETF meeting. Proceedings of IETF 91 can be found by clicking here.
Meeting minutes, working group charters (including information about the working group mailing lists), and general information on current IETF activities are available on the IETF Web site. To go directly to archived video of the technical plenary click here.
The Imagining the Internet Interview Team
IETF 92 – Dallas interviews were conducted for Imagining the Internet by undergraduate researchers Rajat Agarwal, Michelle Alfini, Gary Grumbach, Ashley McGetrick, Rhett Lawson and Paige Pauroso of Elon University’s School of Communications, under the supervision of Elon faculty/staff Colin Donohue, Aaron Moger and Janna Anderson.
