What next for the network, continued

"The end-to-end nature of the original incarnation of the Internet assumed that both ends were trusted, known entities. Typically they were true network participants - engineers who, if their intended application failed, could diagnose and resolve the network problem. Important elements in this - they were trusted, and they were logical peers to at least some elements of the network (the latter meaning they were not excluded by hierarchical dictate from signalling to network elements). These, fundamental points in the architecture of the Internet now have devastating impact, because - clearly - many users abuse the trust and use the logical peer relationship with bad intent (e.g. spam, phishing, Distributed Denial of Service attacks).

Today, these can be resolved only partially, by patching the Internet as we have it. What's interesting and important is that there is growing momentum to consider a clean-start approach to the future, really broadband Internet. It's implausible to imagine that any such clean-start approach would not have network security and rigorous user authentication at its core."

John Ryan, Monitor Group

"The biggest network impact over the next three to five years will be the ongoing transition to a common IP based fixed/mobile network. Separating transport, service control and applications allows network operators to deploy a greater range of new services with significantly less time and effort than is possible on today's service specific legacy networks, providing a large upside for service innovation.

It remains to be seen how much and under what conditions network operators will be required to open the service platforms to third parties and how exposed we will be to the large downside for re-monopolisation."

Craig Skinner, senior consultant, Ovum Consulting

And coming…
Monolithic integration [of optical components] in Indium Phosphide.