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Vint Cerf on the Future of the Net
johnd writes "The internet is set to become the basis for just about every form of communication, according to net pioneer Vint Cerf, and he should know what he is talking about. Not terribly in depth, but an interesting read all the same."
The internet is set to become the basis for just about every form of communication, according to net pioneer Vint Cerf, and he should know what he is talking about.
Why should Vint Cerf know what he's talking about? Sure, he knows all about the Internet; but does he know all about communication in general?
Would the sotry submitter agree with the (equivalently valid) statement that "Microsoft Windows is set to become the basis for just about every form of personal computing, according to Bill Gates, and he should know what he is talking about"?
Tarsnap: Online backups for the truly paranoid
As long as most (older) people I know have a 56k or 64k internet connection, and have to pay per minute online time, VoIP and the like will not become mainstream soon.
It is not that those people do not want a broadband connection, it is just not available at an affordable price in a lot of places.
And in order to make something successfull it should be available to (almost) everyone.
Troll: Large Giant, 63 hp, AC 16, Usually chaotic evil.
This should fall into a category of information that is labeled "duh". It doesn't take an engineer or a market analyst or even a high-school diploma to predict the rise of the internet as the medium for communications. IT'S ALREADY HERE! Point to a method of communication and I just bet that the internet has some relation to it now, or is expanding to include it. This is like me writing an article about how the sky will soon be blue, and all of you slashdot readers go outside and say: "That Jude character was right! The sky is BLUE!"
Get a grip folks. This guy is no futurist. And he didn't predict this any more than Al Gore invented the internet. I.E.: They were involved but it would have happened without them.
The dot com bollocks happened because too few people asked "where's the business plan?". That's all. A bit of common sense is all that's required.
QUALity eQUALs eQUALity
The internet will be important in the future but we need to change the ownership. We need a non-profit body to run the internet and not a company.
Why is this such a big leap in thinking? How many Vonage articles has Slashdot posted? What communications do you think won't be replaced by the Internet? Radio? TV? Phone? It's all just data. Radio is already on the Internet and Video-on-demand is somewhat available through *ahem* certain less than legal means. And we are starting to see phone. When wireless internet catches on how long till we see VoIP cell phones?
What do you see as not being replaced eventually?
Brian Ellenberger
I think one thing that many 'visionaries' overlook is that someone will probably have to provide the information behind these magic new URLs like UPC:3466745689.
In that case, the manufacturer would be a good bet... but what does ISBN:1-84146986-4 take you to?
While I agree with all these visionaries, there is much that needs to be worked out first. A cynic would say that the open nature of the internet doesn't mesh with commercial enterprises, but I hope a compromise can be reached!
You cant make anything foolproof, they'll only invent better fools.
Exactly the sort of logic that gave us ePetFoodOnline. Just because one market segment - which has a definite date that things must be delivered by, which can take orders months in advance, and which tends not to sell perishable goods - works well on the Internet doesn't mean that all commerce must be enabled-to-the-power-of-e.
I only think it was funny though, I agree with him about this and have felt this way for years.
Although I do think that this is the way things are moving it won't be that simple.
In the uk, where we don't have free local calls the home phone is on the point of dying out. Allot of people in their 20s already do without a home phone and simply rely on their mobiles. As the price of mobile calls drops and BT maintain their rediculous pricing it is not outragous to imagine the only place where phone lines are used are for small bussinesses.
Larger organisations are already switching to IP phones and its likely that this could become the normal for small bussinesses aswell.
I think any hardlines will be, within a few years, mostly broadband in one guise or another, with voice and data services both being run through the net. Thsi could lead to some interesting additions to the telephone service - more advanced caller ID, the ability to send bits of text and photos as part of the phone call(rather than telling someone to check their email), who knows what else.
Mobile phones will be far more difficult to predict. They are still very much an area of growth rather than decline. Even the future of 3G phones is uncertain but I can imagine some integration with the expansion of wifi. An interesting case to look at is that of Rabbit - a pre-mobile phone idea which ran phones through local hotspots. A bit like a cordless phone with base stations around the country. We could well see Nokia producing dual phones that run through wifi if its available.
One thing that is likely to happen is a diversification between the infrastructure and the services. You will have your mobile and hardlines provided by one company but then run your (god forbid) metred wifi access, phone calls, mobile calls and god knows what else through virtual companies. This can already seen through these companies offering cheap international calls such as OneTel.
QUALity eQUALs eQUALity comes from Michael Fairchild and his book "ROCK PROPHECY : Sex and Jimi Hendrix in World Religions (the Original Asteroid Prediction & Microsoft Connection). OK, the guy is nuts on the face of it, but he does come out with some really good stuff. "The point is who is wrong and who is right, that's what the point is - not how many people" - Jimi
I note that you've been moderated as a troll. Fuck the ignorant moderator who did that.
Yeah, but that's the beauty of the internet, or (more accurately) the OSI model with layers of abstraction. There's no one infrastructure that it's tied to. VoIP can work on any IP Network. IP can run on many mediums, including a non-physical mediums (wireless radio or whatever the next generation is that we haven't begun to think about). It's no one infrastructure to take out, unless you are talking about the critical points of the internet (DNS servers, core routers and switch, etc.)
But how is that any more vulnerable than the current infrastructure that relies on dedicated wired circuits?
And you comparative worries about the dot com bubble are not applicable. The dot com bubble (and it's subsequent "burst") was entirely related to vultur^H^H^H^H^H^Hventure capitalistic wet dreams. It had everything to do with Wall Street; it wasn't a technological failing.
All Cerf is talking about here is moving the medium for communications away from the dedicated phone circuits and moving it to a more flexible internet.
Really?
You never watch television?
Or flip on the radio?
Or pick up a newspaper?
Or read a book or magazine?
Or notice a billboard?
Or go out to a movie?
Or use a FRS radio on the ski slopes?
Or print out a report/design/specification?
Or read someone's body language?
We communicate in lots of different ways. Whether you realize it or not, I expect you don't do all your communication over the internet and telephone.