Next Generation Internet
September 27, 2011 | Terry Sharrer
With internet data transfer speeds between 256 and 768 kbps, clever college students were able to found companies like Facebook even after the dot-com bust. So, what might be consequential from speeds of 100 gibabits per second? Of course, there are some things worth doing beyond creating social networks for fun, like massive computational analysis of millions of human genomes, fast and cheap. The dreams are perking, but two groups, Internet 2 and Energy Sciences Network, are knitting together the so-called “dark fiber” (i.e. unused fiber optics that have remained since the dot-com bust) into a research highway for the future. On the map from this piece note the existing trunk lines and the potential for economic development. MORE