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To: IceShark who wrote (20986)	10/9/1998 2:58:00 PM
From: Glenn D. Rudolph	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 164684

Push up for the weekend newspapers so the little guy doesn't get too worried as he has time to think about things. It is looking that way too. Hmmmm. Glenn

To: IceShark who wrote (20986)	10/9/1998 8:14:00 PM
From: Glenn D. Rudolph	Respond to of 164684

Experts: More changes in store for the Internet By Bob Brown Network World Fusion, 10/8/98 New York - The Internet is either going to eat up existing communications networks over the next few years or be eaten itself, according to speakers here at this week's Technology Summit 98 conference. "The Internet is going away as we know it today," said Sprint Chairman and CEO William Esrey. He described the Internet today as a loose confederation of networks that provides best effort service to customers, but is inevitably subject todelays and packet losses. Communications companies such as Sprint, with its Integrated On-demand Network (ION) project, are building a new breed of super-reliable networks based on packet switching and other Internet technologies, he said. ION, which large business customers will begin testing out this month, is an integrated IP and ATM network designed to handle any traffic type and provide users with constant network access. "The Internet in principle will live, but the Internet itself will probably be replaced by other networks," Esrey said. The Internet "is not as efficient as you think it is from an access point of view," Esrey said. In actuality, the local portion of Internet calls is subsidized by the high fees Bell operating companies charge under current regulation, he said. Esrey predicted that "there will be a rationalization of the economics" under which Internet calls will be priced more sensibly. Other speakers said that Esrey's comments are typical of those from a telecom executive. One speaker said it does not bode well for Sprint that Esrey is measuring the future capacity of his company's network in terms of how many phone calls it will be able to handle rather than how much traffic of all types it will be able to handle. John McQuillan, president of McQuillan Consulting, said he had a hard time seeing the "validity" in Esrey's remarks, but that they were not entirely wrong. The consultant said he does see a couple of threats to the Internet: a possible end to the "wonderful economic environment" that has helped to subsidize the Internet's growth; and political infighting that could tear apart the innovative community that has developed new Internet technologies over the years. Nevertheless, McQuillan expects the Internet to consume all kinds of other networks, including electronic fund transfer networks, frame relay and assorted private networks. Others questioned why so many people are focused on what will come next when the Internet works so well today. "The Internet still has lots of legs," said Doug Van Houweling, president and CEO of the University Corporation for Advanced Internet Development. His group is working to test advanced Internet technologies within the research community before exposing them to the Internet community at large. While many telecommunications companies would like to see the Internet become a centrally managed entity operated by themselves, Van Houweling said this scenerio is not likely to happen. Perhaps the biggest change to the Internet in the months ahead will be its increasingly application-intensive nature, said Paul Gudonis, president of GTE Internetworking. The future of the Internet will not just be about "fat pipes" being talked about by upstart IP network carriers, he said.