The Last Few Years
There is no doubt about the fact that the internet is permeating and transforming most, if not all, aspects of our societies and economies. It is a brilliant catalyst of collaboration, innovation and creativity, and more importantly, for development of our industrial economies and societies. Within the last few years, Google has tripled its users, and Facebook and MySpace have attracted and stimulated millions of users that can come together on a social platform. The internet has become incredibly mobile and capable of supporting a wide variety of services and applications that would never have been even predicted before.
The Pace of Progress
Contrary to popular belief, at the current rate of technological development, statisticians predict we will experience a substantial amount of progress in the next 100 years, equal to what we witnessed in the past 20,000 years. The internet is becoming increasingly pervasive and mobile, and it continues to evolve as a complex and resourceful virtual space. The global annual traffic in 2014 showed a substantial rise since people from all regions of the world have become increasingly active online.
Increase in Information
In the next few years, an exponential rise is expected in information, online video traffic, and development of social networks and the materialization of the internet of ‘things’. This will progressively cause the offline and online world to become interlinked. The existing internet architecture is expected to soon change drastically, becoming highly interactive and progressive as new ways of usage are being introduced. Even the growth in the number of security threats is enough reason for the internet to become more diverse and flexible, defending itself against crashes.
Today’s Internet Architecture
All this development could pose a crucial question as to whether the current architecture of the internet needs to be redesigned or formatted. The internet of tomorrow is expected to meet challenges like scalability, heterogeneity, manageability, mobility, openness, availability, trust, security and neutrality, and at the same time, guarantee the sustenance of governance and business models. These are a few dimensions of the internet of tomorrow that need comprehensive exploration. The research community has an important role to play in this exploration in order to foster prosperity and growth simultaneously.
The Future of Internet Technology
As technology develops at a staggering speed, it is only years before we become the advanced species the human race has long aspired to become. The information technology industry has grown by leaps and bounds since its emergence yet it has miles to go still. The infrastructure of the internet today is focused on providing maximum benefits and resources. Tomorrow, the need may change and the internet will have to adapt. As the research community invests in this study and tries to explore the possibilities that still haven’t been discovered and put into practice, we can all expect the internet to become much more dense and intricate in the future. Development has led us to achieve semi-consciousness in humanoid machines and motility in the most compact of devices. With the rate of progress at which we currently stand, much can be expected out of our potential to move forward in every field.