NRC RELEASES NII REPORT

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

 COMPUTING RESEARCH ASSOCIATION BULLETI
NRC RELEASES NII REPORT
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The National Research Council released a new report on the National
Information Infrastructure on May 25th. The report, "Realizing the
Information Future," was written by the Committee on National Research and
Education Network Issues (also know as the NRENAISSANCE Committee), chaired
by Prof. Len Kleinrock, chair of the computer science department at UCLA.


Although the 265 page report presents a lengthy and wide-ranging look at
NII issues, Kleinrock highlighted two major themes of the report in his
prerelease press briefing:


(1) technology and network architecture and
(2) the particular needs of the Research, Education, and Library (labeled
REL in the report) communities.


The committee acknowledged that the NII was clearly to be built and
operated by the private sector, but it felt that these two areas needed
continual federal attention.


In particular, while praising the work of the administration's Information
Infrastructure Task Force (IITF), an cabinet level interagency group
chaired by Ron Brown, secretary of Commerce, the Committee noted two
problems, lack of authority and long term commitment and that system
architecture was not well represented, even though, as Kleinrock said in
his press briefing, "Technology really matters."


Kleinrock argued that the fundamental architecture of the NII **could** either
present great new potential or severely restrict future applications,
**depending on how it evolves.** The report develops a proposed high level
network architecture **intended to ensure maximum flexibility**, defining a
so-called "bearer layer" that draws a sharp line between transport services
and applications. In the committee's view, this approach will provide for
maximum competition and innovation on either side of the layer, while
isolating each from affecting the other. Government attention should be
focused on encouraging the development of standards for that layer.


The committee goes on to discuss the particular needs of education research
and libraries, arguing that these institutions have been at the forefront
to date of exploring the potential benefits of an advanced information
infrastructure and should continue to play that role. But, as publicly
funded institutions, they can only continue to do so with continued
government support and policies that guarantee affordable access.


The report concludes with several recommendations for government action. It
deliberately avoided current regulatory and legal questions. When
questioned about why it did so, Kleinrock said that the committee felt that
the most important and most needed contribution it could make was to focus
on network architecture and the needs of the REL communities.


This report is a vitally needed contribution to the NII debate. It should
be required reading for anyone concerned about the NII, especially those in
the research and education and libraries. The printed version will be
available from the National Academy Press in about two weeks, and it will
also be made available on the Academy's web server (http://www.nas.edu/).