Future of the Internet

Internet. In today's world, almost everything is about the Internet, be it for work or leisure. Everything is easily accessible via the world wide web, and it has been so integrated into our lives that most of us can never imagine living without it. It seemed as if one would be handicapped if the Internet is down or inaccessible, and I totally agree with it. This is because with school work, registrations needed to be done via the Internet, one could imagine how inconvenient it will be if one is unable to get connected to the system.

As more and more people are getting comfortable with the existence of Internet and also satisfied with it being able to provide great convenience and accessibility, Internet now, can not only be accessed via laptops. It has also been integrated into mobile phones (SmartPhones), televisions, home appliances, etc, providing an unprecedented, nearly uniform level of integrated data communications.

Furthermore, with the high level of Internet usage today, Singapore has also catch up with this trend by installing island-wide wireless services which can be accessed to all Singaporeans in soon to come. There are 2 great advantages to such infrastructure:

1) There are no infrastructure start-up or maintenance costs other than the base stations

2) It allow users to stay connected even though they are at the other side of the island. Furthermore, users get to access faster services at vastly lower costs.

In addition, with the fast-paced city life that we are in, everything is about being fast and efficient, and thus not missing out having a high speed Internet connection. Most of us should have experienced being grumpy or frustrated when the Internet failed to load or get connected as fast as we expect it to be. As one always says "Time is Money". Every minute seemed so precious to us that everything around us has to be highly effective and efficient.

Therefore, to ensure its efficiency, the Internet 2 Project has been established.

Internet 2 Project

It is the consortium of more than 200 universities, government agencies, and private businesses collaborating to find ways to make the Internet more efficient and faster.

Their primary goals are to:

1) Create a leading edge of very-high speed network for national research community

2) Enhance revolutionary Internet applications

3) Ensure rapid transfer of new network services and applications to broader Internet community.

and the benefits of this project:

1) IP multicasting: It enables efficient delivery to data to many locations of a network

2) Latency Solutions: diffserv assigns different levels of priority to packets depending on type of data being transmitted.

3) Guaranteed service levels: Ability to purchase right to more data through network at guaranteed speed in return for higher fee.

All these might sound rather good and I do agree that it is a great help in increasing our working efficiency, and also allowing us to be more reachable and accessible as we move from place to place.

However, in my opinion, it might indirectly result in certain negative impact in terms of a person's development. As mentioned earlier, when one is exposed to a highly efficient environment, anything that moves slower than it is supposed to be, would result in one getting impatient and frustrated, and this is one problem that many city dwellers now would have faced. Hence, imagine if the future generation were exposed to an even more efficient technology, what would they become? They might forget to slow down or stop to appreciate some beautiful things around them. Everything is about time, efficiency and money.

Thus, the future of the Internet, its improvements, is it really a good or bad thing?