IEEE GI 2016

Abstract: The Internet is no longer new - many of the protocols in common use originated at least 20 years ago, and many basic technologies have not changed fundamentally for 30 years or more, even though they have seen important improvements in performance, capabilities and security. Based on this history, what are key challenges that the Internet has to overcome - technological, economic and policy? Often, research has focused on a small subset of problems, but we have made less progress on making the Internet secure, usable and affordable. Optimistic notions that the Internet would usher in prosperity, equality and peace have given way to more realistic assessments. I will try to enumerate some of the challenges as the Internet matures from a youth where indiscretions are forgivable, evaluated on promise and potential, to a mature adult, evaluated on results and predictability. Can software-defined networking and content-centric networking infuse the Internet with new vitality? What can they offer - and what problems are likely to arise? Can 5G offer can opportunity to return to a simpler, more easily manageable, network? What might be economic models that offer more competition than the existing approaches? I will not promise a happy talk of future technology glories, but hope to stimulate discussion of the bigger issues we can face as a research community.

Bio: Prof. Henning Schulzrinne, Levi Professor of Computer Science at Columbia University, received his Ph.D. from the University of Massachusetts in Amherst, Massachusetts. MTS at AT&T Bell Laboratories; associate department head at GMD-Fokus (Berlin), before joining the Computer Science and EE departments at Columbia University. He served as chair of Computer Science from 2004 to 2009 and as Chief Technology Officer of the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) from 2012 until 2014.
Protocols co-developed by him, such as RTP, RTSP and SIP, are now Internet standards, used by almost all Internet telephony and multimedia applications. He is a Fellow of the ACM and IEEE.