ÿ ÿDAVID PETERSCHMIDT, PRESIDENT of San Mateo, Calif.-based Inktomi Corp., said bulk providers of what is called the "backbone" service of the Internet in the United States report volume is doubling every 90 days.
ÿ ÿ ÿ ÿHe told the forum in Hungary that there are now an estimated 100 million documents on the Internet and the number will rise to 800 million by the year 2000.
ÿ ÿ ÿ ÿ"So if you think about all the users ... and all the documents, the traffic, it is really getting tough out there at moving it around quickly," he said.
ÿ ÿ ÿ ÿEric Benhamou, chief executive of Santa Clara, Calif.-based networking company 3Com Corp., said users may decide to subscribe to supplemental core services - services independent of the Internet, but linked to it - that would allow them to have speedier access and to transfer larger volumes of data.
ÿ ÿ ÿ ÿ"It is likely that, over time, we are going to evolve toward a situation where we have multiple cores with the one that we know today, the current Internet, being one of the cores that perhaps can be used as a very useful core for standard or vanilla type of communications," Benhamou told the European Technology Roundtable Exhibition. "The network of the future is likely to be more intelligent, more layered, with multiple choices not just on the access ... but on the core."
- ERIC BENHAMOU
CEO of 3Com Corp. ÿ ÿ ÿ ÿ"So ... the network of the future is likely to be more intelligent, more layered, with multiple choices not just on the access ... but on the core," he said.
ÿ ÿ ÿ ÿRobert Madge, CEO of the Britain-based Madge Networks, said he was wary of any changes that would alter the universal compatibility and accessibility of the Internet.
ÿ ÿ ÿ ÿ"As soon as you start trying to take that concept and that leads to anything with any form of central control, then it seems to me the concept will break down," he said.
ÿ ÿ ÿ ÿBut Benhamou said the compatibility could be maintained, with users paying premiums for higher levels of service. "As soon as you start trying to take that concept and that leads to anything with any form of central control, then it seems to me the concept will break down."
- ROBERT MADGE
CEO of Madge Networks ÿ ÿ ÿ ÿ"We can build up multiple cores without creating a rupture of the existing Internet," he said. "... We can protect the users from the evolution of creating multiple cores."
ÿ ÿ ÿ ÿThe three-day conference of information technology company chief executives is discussing new trends and issues in Internet technology.
ÿ ÿ ÿ ÿRoundtable discussions are tackling subjects such as the human voice on the Internet and speech recognition, the future role of telecom companies as Internet service providers, electronic commerce and computer security.
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