Elon University

Subtopic: General

Internet Architectural and Policy Implications for Migration from High-End User to the ‘New User’

[In the Internet’s next phase,] the end user may have sufficient processing power and memory capability, as well as communications access capabilities, to be a host. In addition, we anticipate that there will be a further migration to the point where there are multiple hosts per end user, rather than the prior paradigm of multiple users per host. This challenge will dramatically stress the Internet in directions not seen previously … Current protocols focus on data transactions, with some innovations allowing images and limited multimedia, namely voice and video. The future challenge will be the development of new and innovate protocols to allow new-user access to grow while enriching the capability of the information transferred.

The WELL: A Regionally Based On-Line Community on the Internet

The possibility that the future ‘Internet’ (or whatever replaces it) will turn out to be a monolithic corporate-controlled electronic consumer shopping mall and amusement park is antithetical to the idea that the individual in the electronic communications world is a producer as well as a consumer, desires to interact freely with other groups and individuals there, and is the most qualified director and creator of the medium. A future centered around a one-way entertainment model would effectively gag those who would use networks as forums to exercise the freedoms that define our democracy.

The WELL: A Regionally Based On-Line Community on the Internet

Public electronic networking offers society an important new forum for the practice of democratic principles and First Amendment rights to free speech and assembly. Its value to the nation and the world may be critical at this stage in history, when cumulative problems abound and faith in the accountability of central government is at a low ebb.

Balancing the Commercial and Public-Interest Visions of the NII

The Clinton-Gore administration came into office determined to understand the promise of information infrastructure, diagnose the barriers to its realization, and solicit the cooperation of Congress, states and communities, and the public realize this promise. This is still an attainable objective. However it will not be attained by leaving applications initiative to commercial firms and leaving the architecture of the communications and computing services to the contention of carriers before the FCC … It would be a serious error to underestimate the importance of building both the institutional capacity and the software to support the public-interest applications.

Balancing the Commercial and Public-Interest Visions of the NII

The key to the success of Internet is that it was invented by its users … It is essential that as the NII develops, federal regulation must not deny new styles of networking and new kinds of applications. It is not clear that a commercial-entertainment-driven NII will be able to offer such a flexible environment for innovation.

Balancing the Commercial and Public-Interest Visions of the NII

Internet is not used primarily for point to point communication; the sharing of information is a key value … There is a form of knowledge externality in knowledge sharing. There is a selflessness in the way people in the “Internet Culture” voluntarily collect and share information.

Balancing the Commercial and Public-Interest Visions of the NII

Internet is egalitarian for those who are on it; it is elitist for those who cannot use it or do not have access to it. Who will guide the broadening of access to Internet, while preserving its special character? Who is going to protect the public values in the information infrastructure? Who will protect the culture built in the Internet by the users who created it? How should the federal agencies advance the NII, and what provisions of policy should be incorporated?