see my pps in Tokyo Diary #8

[Dave Farber <farber () central cis upenn edu>]

Months ago I sent this note to many. After being in Japan and seeing the
networking facilities being supplied to industry and academia and seeing
the USA doing less and less on the frontier in  infrastucture and slowly
creating a legal framework that may preclude the vision of the NII/GII many
of us hope for, I am taking the liberty of resending this.


Dave




Move It or Lose It


Professor David Farber
The Alfred Fitler Moore Professor of Telecommunication Systems
University of Pennsylvania
200 S. 33 rd Street
Philadelphia PA 19104-6389
farber () cis upenn edu






Four years ago the United States undertook a pioneering activity in the
exploration of gigabit technology.  This activity grew out of a National
Research Council study which suggested, as part of the move towards NREN,
research designed to explore the impact of gigabit transmission speeds on
networking, applications, and computer architecture.  In short, the
research program has been a great success.


This success has been apparent in not only a deeper understanding of the
impact of high speed technology on protocols, computer architecture,
applications, and system architecture, but also in that our success has
motivated nations such as Japan, Singapore, the European Community, Sweden,
Australia, and others to undertake similar explorations within their own
industrial/governmental research environments. Ultra-high-speed networking
is taking off around the world.


Unfortunately, just as we are developing a much better appreciation of the
problems we must solve and finding ourselves in an active, competitive
international research community, our resolve is beginning to flag.  As I
mentioned in an editorial for the ERCIM newsletter, we are beginning to see
reactions to gigabit research in the U.S. which range from, "we don't need
a gigabit network," to "we don't see the applications yet," to "can't we
get by funding 155 megabits?"  This would not be completely unreasonable
(although to my mind, it would be unwise) were it not for the fact that we
have stirred up the juices of gigabit research in other nations.  So if, at
this time, we cease to move forward, we stand a very good chance of losing
our technological leadership in the next century, leaving Europe and Asia
to reap the benefits of gigabit technology.


I am reminded of the days leading up to the supercomputer initiative, when
people were saying, "why do you need such big machines?  Why can't we
experiment on slower, cheaper machines?"  Our scientific and political
leadership at that time saw the advantage to the nation of leaping out in
front.  It would be unfortunate and inappropriate if this leadership at
this critical stage, having defined the direction of the national and
global information infrastructure, does not have the courage to do what
they did in the days of the supercomputer revolution.


We are at a critical point.  Unless we continue and expand ultra-high-speed
networking activities, we will lose the momentum of industry and academia.
We will lose the ability to train a new generation of communication
engineers, and, in my mind, we will have failed the next generation of U.S.
scientists.  For, if the U.S. isn't ready for the 21st century, the rest of
the world is.