Crosstalk meeting on October 14, 1997
Next Generation Internet: Architecture, Applications, Initiatives, and Implications
Participants:
- William Mitchell, Dean School of Architecture and Chair, Council on Educational Technology
- Jeff Schiller, MIT's Network Manager
- Steve Lerman, Professor, Civil Engineering and Director CECI
Dean Bill Mitchell spoke about the visions that have come out of the
Council on Educational Technology and that are contained in its
report. The guiding principle is where MIT wants to go educationally,
and the report contains a scenario-based approach. All scenarios need
pervasive highspeed network, for example to integrate good audio and
video with substantive material. It is proposed to put the
implementation of the report on a "project" basis, requiring lots of
industry partnership.
Jeff Schiller spoke about plans that are currently under development
for bringing high bandwidth to MIT. The applications that are
envisioned by the Council's Report need continuous high bandwidth if
they are to handle streaming audio and video in real time. Random
delay would make the medium unusable. He described MIT's vBNS (622
MB) project and also the RSVP protocol for ensuring Quality of Service
(i.e. the ability to reserve bandwidth for certain applications).
MIT, Harvard, and Boston University are working together on creating a
Gigapop in the Boston area, which would connect these schools to the
vBNS backbone and bring 100 MB into the Institute.
Prof. Steve Lerman talked about the NMIS