IP: Recent article in US News

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

US News & WR May 6 issue page 59.
Here is a summary of the article from webmaster () scescape net (Joe Bonin)


--begin summary


  Quotes Bob Metcalfe inventor of Ethernet and founder of
  3Com Corp.  "The Internet is about to collapse and it's
  going to shake some of the naivete' right out of the
  industry."


  The most likely time will be July with the Olympic
  Committee and IBM planning to put the Summer Olympic
  video and sound on the Internet according to him.


  The problems stem from private companies.  ANS, MCI,
  Netcom, UUNET and Sprint and others taking over the
  backbone in the last year from NSF.  These companies now
  claim ownership of portions of the backbone.  But where
  NSF gave out Internet traffic data the new players do
  not.  As a result no single company has a decent gauge
  of what's going on.  Also, the shared parts of the
  backbone has no single company incentive to improve them
  (i.e. no incentive to back each other up.)


  Rob Hagens, MCI director of Internet engineering views
  Metcalf's scenario as being extreme with others inspite
  of 1 1/2 hour brownout on its West Coast backbone early
  in April.  He says "I believe we're going to be able to
  keep the Internet running."


  They are all racing to invest in high speed networks to
  keep ahead of demand which is growing 100% per year.


--end summary