Life After Internet: Making Room For New Applications – Building Information Infrastructure

In Building an Information Infrastructure, xx-xx , ed. B. Kahin, (McGraw-Hill: New York), with C. C. Catlett. (1992).

Introduction

The rapid expansion of the Internet and its transition to the NREN will have a profound impact on the manner in which science is carried out in this country. We divide this impact into three separate effects the growth in connectivity of users and resources, the growth in functionality or services offered by the network, and the change in the scale of applications which this connectivity and functionality can support. We will look to several areas of science, namely simulation of severe storms and astrophysical systems, medical and laboratory imaging, and digital libraries as examples of both application drivers for enhancements in the network and application areas which are fundamentally changed by the existence of the network. Finally, we derive some of the resulting technology and policy issues which will be critical to the future of the internet.