The Future of the Internet - Research Paper Example

The Future of the Internet Internet plays a crucial role in our day to day lives. Nobody can negate the effectiveness of internet in our lives. Internet is employed in business sectors, educational sectors, commercial sectors, governmental sectors, scientific discovery sectors and many others. The concept of globalization is also attached with the concept of internet. It is only because of internet that people are able to communicate through long distances. It will not be incorrect to say that internet has converted the world into a global village. The future of internet is quite bright because of its so much effectuality in our lives. It appears that in the future the role of internet will be increased. Internet can be explained as a network. It is a network that is utilized by means of internet protocols, which enable users from different parts of the world to interact with one another with facilitation and ease (Moschovitis, et. al, 1999). The success of internet to this date depends mostly on protocol (Hossein, 2005). The internet protocol (IP) suite is designed to ease communication between different types of networks and is based on the datagram (connectionless) approach (Matthew, 2002). The transmission commission protocol (TCP) offers reliable communication on top of the datagram service offered by IP. It includes procedures to set up and clear down a connection and to send segments of up to 64 Kbytes in both directions (Moschovitis, et.al, 1999). With automation and upgrade in the present working procedures of internet, it is considered that the future of internet will take it to further improvements and ease in terms of usage. At present, internet is employed frequently by most of the people of the world. We cannot say that everyone is aware of internet usage but this fact cannot be negated that internet is gaining reputation not only in developed countries but also developing countries on the basis of its so many benefits associated to it (Matthew, 2002). In the future, more people will be able to use internet and there will be more than today’s online businesses running over internet. There will be future developments in the internet. The browsers of the internet such as Internet Explorer, Netscape, Mozilla Firefox, Google Chrome and many others are used actually for accessing internet content. These browsers with many others are constantly being updated and improved. With this improvement comes an increase in the speed at which, the browser can read and interpret pages. With the continual updates in speed, compatibility is also improved. It is hoped that in the future, all internet code will be standardized, and thus as long as code is not bugged, the user will never be troubled by error messages caused by the incorrect browsers (Hossein, 2005). Compression is used in numerous internet based applications, in many forms. At the communication level, compression can be used to reduce the size of the physical packets transferred (Matthew, 2002). Improvements in the compression of pictures, audio and video will be highly significant for reducing size, increasing download times and increasing internet speed (Freer, 1996). Speed matters a lot in terms of further improvement of internet. There are continuous attempts towards upgrade of internet’s speed. Faster hardware, both at the user end and for the internet equipment will increase speed further. Faster transfer devices such as modems, cable, ASDL, ISDN and others will increase the data transfer rate between computers (Moschovitis, et. al, 1999). Analogue modems are already being phased out at the current speed of 56 Kbps, due to the maximum speed of copper wire carrying analogue signals (Matthew, 2002). ISDN is the next step up from a modem. Being digital, it is possible to exceed the maximum speed for an analogue copper line, allowing a speed of 64 Kbps or 128 Kbps if two lines are used (Freer, 1996). Cable/ASDL is the form of data transfer that is still being developed. This form promises that it will upgrade the download speed up to 6100 Kbps and upload speed of up to 640 Kbps when implemented (Freer, 1996). ASDL interfaces for a PC are relatively expensive, and so it looks likely that the service provider will rent this particular piece of hardware to the consumer (Hossein, 2005). It is also likely that this service will be offered as a permanent internet connection with a fixed charge. Instant messaging is already a major internet craze, with one of the top contenders (ICQ) assigning over 8 million usernames (Hossein, 2005). The basic concept of an IM (Instant Messenger) is the maintenance of a list of users with which, one wants to stay in contact. When someone logs onto the internet, the IM will determine who is online and allow him/her to communicate in real time with them, or alternatively, send an offline message, which will be picked up as soon as the recipient logs on. The development of internet media is one of the growth industries in business. The creation of such media was originally a difficult task, requiring specialized knowledge (such as HTML coding). Now, however, WYSIWYG design and development has meant that relatively complex designs can be created with little or no specialized knowledge (Hossein, 2005). In the future, this method of designing will advance to such a level that web design will be available to most inexperienced of internet users. This does, however, mean a drop in the amount of internet design business. Internet2 is the new creation of the Internet or it can be said that it is the enhanced version of the internet. It is an extremely high rated network urbanized by an unprofitable group of universities, industry and government to make the trade of compound information rapid (Matlis, 2006). Internet2 is a conglomerate of more than 300 U.S. academies and universities working with associates from most important business, government agencies, exploration laboratories and international organizations to expand the next-generation Internet (Rodriguez, et.al, 2001). The Internet2 is a high-speed international network interconnecting research institutions throughout the world (Matlis, 2006). The Internet2 is intended to aid collaborative research by carrying application traffic specific to research. This is different from the largely commercial traffic found on the Internet (Hossein, 2005). Internet has allowed businesses to become global by means of online accessing to products and services. With internet, many businesses are working on online basis. The customer can book an order over the internet and buy a product, can pay his/her bills and can ask for any product or service that can be shipped to him/her in the minimum possible time (Matthew, 2002). Internet is also employed for advertising campaigns as millions of users all over the world access internet on daily basis. Therefore, it can be said without any restriction that internet usage is going to be enhanced and increased in future as there is no stoppage to the improvement of internet technology. The wristwatch computer with voice input and speech output combined with cellular communication, permanent internet connection and global positioning satellite could mean that wherever we are, we could ask for advice such as “the quickest way home from where I am now” (Moschovitis, et. al, 1999). We could ask the home automation system to prepare for our arrival, switching on heating, running a bath, de-frosting meal and so on. Internet technology means a lot to us as it promises us to gift us with all the ease and improvement in our standard of living. Therefore, it can be said explicitly that the future of internet is very bright. It has facilitated us with many benefits till now and many hopes are associated with updated versions of internet and its applications. It is hoped that in future, internet will accommodate the humankind with the many more advantages that will bring ease and facilitation in the lives of people all around the world. References Freer, J. R. (1996). Computer Communications and Networks. London: UCL Press. Hossein. (2005). “The Handbook of Information Security”. California: John Wiley & Sons, Inc. Matlis, Jan. (2006). Internet2. Computerworld, 40(35), 30. Matthew, Gast. (2002). “802.11 Wireless Networks: The Definitive Guide”. New York: O’Reilly & Associates. Moschovitis, Christos; Poole, Hilary; Schuyler, Tami and Senft, Theresa M. (1999). History of the Internet: A Chronology, 1843 to the Present. Santa Barbara, Cal.: ABC-CLIO. Rodriguez, Adolfo; Gatrell, John; Karas, John and Peschke, Roland. (2001). "Internet transition - Migrating from IPv4 to IPv6". TCP/IP Tutorial and Technical Overview, IBM. Read More