|
In its short life,
Internet has become an agent of revolutionary change and is one of the fastest
tools to promote and defend freedom and to facilitate democratic access to
information and knowledge. It has emerged as today’s greatest instruments of
progress and has gradually become a part of the vital infrastructure of global
social, economic, cultural
and political life. The Internet’s effect on our lives is
pervasive. Over the past decade, the use of e-mail, the web and blogs have become part of the daily routine of more than a
billion Internet users.
Today the Internet access touch points have outgrown
the traditional PC based Internet browsers (Internet Explorer, Firefox) to desktop applications, mobile phones and
satellite navigational devices in vehicles and living rooms. More and more
people are buying movie tickets, air tickets, travel pacakages,
railway tickets, paying bills online.
Online gaming is projected to increase by 141% by 2011
in the Asia Pacific Region and mobile gaming to increase by 119% by a leading
gaming industry. Very soon we will see the dawn of the video age when video
will be used for buying, communicating, learning and socializing. Online chat
and blogs is reducing the gap between private and
public life of the present generation. Cyber cafes have taken over pubs and
bars for socializing in spite of the opposing forces of regional borders,
copyright, censorship, network blocking, etc.
On the Flip Side
The internet revolution is yet to happen in India, like the way it has happened with cell phones and
cable TV. While it’s common to see everyone from auto drivers to senior
citizens with cell phones, you will rarely find an auto driver who visits a
cyber cafe to check his email. This has to do with opportunity cost involved in
spending time in cyber cafes and most importantly the lack of services to
target a large part of India. The Internet too largely uses (ASCII) American
Standard Code for Information Interchange. This alienates many communities from
the boon of computers and Internet.
The fact remains that most of India’s billion people are denied access to the
Internet–and not only because they don’t have a connection or a computer. The
digital revolution is leaving them behind because they don’t speak English, the
dominant language of the Web.
Even if there is room for further growth among
English-language users in India, far greater growth could be unleashed. Hindi is the
world’s third or fourth most widely spoken language. Yet it is not even in the
top 10 languages on the Internet, according to InternetWorldStats.com. A recent
trend of regional content is preferred by more and more Internet users.
It is recognized that the content has to be in a language
that is understood by many users. In the internet space, this is highly
unbalanced currently. 12 out of 6000 popular languages spoken globally account
for 98% of web content, with English most prominent among them. Worldwide
efforts are on to provide user-friendly tools for language independent search
and retrieval, and machine translation of text from English to another language
and vice-versa.
Dearth of content in other Indian languages could
limit the growth of the number of Internet users in the country as growth is
almost saturating among English speaking users in India. Between 5 and 10 percent of India’s population speaks English. (Estimates of the number
of English speakers in India vary widely from 5 percent of the population, or 50
million people, all the way to more than 30 percent, or 350 million people).
Internet proliferation is difficult within the limited domain of English
language content.
A multilingual Internet will increase local interest
in Internet content and increase the possibilities for all language groups to
share and access information in their own language.
The challenges in increasing local content include the
standardization of fonts and Internationalized domain
names, an issue the Indian government is already working on. There needs to be
relevant content in local languages (price of crops for farmers, weather
conditions for fisherman etc) to see use of the internet in rural India. Some small steps are being taken to increase local
language content but it is too early to say whether they have in any way
spurred Internet usage.
Different internet products in India have different audiences, a good portion of Indian
net users are still constrained by what the Indian net has meant to them: thus
far, everything-in-one portals such as Rediff and Sify. In the context of entertainment, lifestyle and
recreational activities, local language versions have a niche market.
Local language newspapers have gone online,
webduniya.com offers content in Hindi, Tamil, Telugu and Malayalam and a
government-led project Vidyavahini, which aims to use
the Internet to train teachers and provide educational materials on the
Internet, plans to develop content in Hindi, Tamil, Malayalam and Bengali, in
addition to English.
Tomorrows Internet - Internet2.0
The incubator for many of the emerging technologies
shaping the future is known as Internet2. Formed in 1996 and administered by
the University Corporation for Advanced Internet Development (UCAID), Internet2
is a partnership between universities, corporations and government agencies to
create new applications that can’t run over the existing Internet and to
develop the infrastructure that supports those applications.
The Internet2 Network’s physical implementation is
made up of several robust, logically different, but related networks, each on
its own overlaid infrastructure. These networks include:
Ø Advanced IP network (provided by Juniper routers)
Ø Dynamic Circuit network (provided by the multiservice
switching capabilities of the Ciena Core Directors)
Ø Core optical network (provided by the Infinera
platform)
IP Network
The IP network is built across a carrier-class infrastructure
and supports leading edge IPv4, IPv6, multicast, and other advanced networking
protocols, as well as the ability to more easily and flexibly increase its
capacity beyond any other R&E network in the world.
Dynamic Circuit Network
This is a completely new service that realizes the
community’s vision of hybrid (IP and dynamic circuit) networking. The Internet2
Dynamic Circuit (DC) Network is a network unlike any other before it. It uses
community-developed, standards-based technologies and protocols to provide
on-demand dedicated optical paths between endpoints. Just as the R&E
community led the way in expanding the reach and capabilities of packet
networking using the IP and TCP protocols decades ago, the DC Network breaks
new ground to provide the U.S. research and education community dedicated,
customizable, on-demand bandwidth.
Services enabled by the DC Network include short-term,
point-to-point circuits, setup by the requestor or application in standard
SONET bandwidth increments up to 10 Gbps. The DC
Network is based upon the connections into the Ciena
Core Directors and use of control plane software. A variety of control plane
software is under development, building on the work of the OSCARS and DRAGON
projects, with the goal of enabling automated reservations.
Static Circuit Services
Internet2 WaveCo provides a
unified service for Internet2 members looking for long-term, static, point-to-point
circuits to cost-effectively extend their network connectivity. Circuits are
provisioned either by Internet2 over the Internet2-controlled optical infrastructure
or by Level 3 Communications, on their nationwide footprint.
Commercial Peering Service - More Performance,
Less Cost
Commercial Peering (CP) service is included in the
base connection fee, so it is available for Internet2 Network connectors at no
additional cost.
Internet2 is a not a single network, but a consortium
of hundreds of high-speed networks linked by fiber optic backbones that span
the United States and links to other countries. The network transmits data at
speeds up to 2.4 gigabits per second—45,000 times faster than a 56 Kbps modem—
allowing scientists to test their laboratory discoveries in the real world.
The next-generation network went online in February,
1999, linking a number of universities around the world. It should be available
for commercial use soon. Then get ready for 21st century services like
interactive television, virtual 3-D videoconferencing, and much more.
High-speed
networks will make it possible for professionals to work in ways never before
possible. For instance, scientists around the world can share specialized
equipment like electron microscopes.
Today, Virtual Collaborative Clinics connects medical
facilities allowing doctors to manipulate high-resolution, 3-D images of MRI
scans and other medical imaging. Not only can doctors
consult and diagnose, but they can simulate surgery by using a “CyberScalpel.” Virtual surgery gives surgeons an opportunity
to practice before even entering the operating room, reducing the time required
for the actual procedure. Using this kind of virtual technology, local hospitals
can access resources and skills only available at larger institutions. The
technology may soon be used to provide remote health care to astronauts on
extended space journeys.
A New Kind of Web
While PCs were once the primary means of accessing the
Internet, we’re now seeing Internet-enabled devices such as PDAs
and cell phones that send and receive e-mail and access the Web. Soon,
everything from your car to your refrigerator will be connected to the global
network, communicating with each other wirelessly.
Electrolux, best known for its vacuum cleaners, has developed
the ScreenFridge, an Internet refrigerator that
manages your pantry, among other things. It e-mails a shopping list to your
local supermarket and coordinates a convenient delivery time with your schedule.
Say hello to a brave, new world.
*Additional Director
General (M & C), PIB, Delhi
** With technical inputs from Department of Information Technology
|
Internet : Connecting People
