2. Study background Carried out for European Commission DG Information Society under SMART programme Runs Feb. 2009 – Nov. 2010 Study team: Colin Blackman,Ian Brown, Jonathan Cave, Simon Forge,Karmen Guevara,Lara Srivastava,Motohiro Tsuchiya & MalteZiewitz Advisory panel: Rudolf van der Berg, Erik Bohlin, Jon Crowcroft, Xavier Dalloz, William Drake, Chris Marsden, Ian Miles & Jun Murai
3. Goals of the study To explore what a future Internet should be - by researching the possible social, psychological, technological and economic options for its development and their likely socio- economic impacts: Explore the past - examine prior studies - analyse how the current Internet evolved to date, its main drivers and effects Define possible future scenarios and assess likely socio-economic impacts - investigate the interrelations between technological, social, psychological and economic trends and developments related to a future Internet, verified using Delphi surveys Produce a single preferred vision for Europe of a Future Internet, in terms of each of the 4 forces 3
4. Scenarios not predictions of the future, but internally consistent stimulants for discussion that take into account the likely social, technical and economic trends identified by environment scan, over 200 expert respondents to our online Delphi survey and our first workshop in Brussels
5. Smooth Trip - the knowledge-based Internet economy Internet pervasive across public and private life; a major engine of social progress and economic growth Online education and retraining critical to a high-value-add European economy with ageing workforce Work and relationships increasingly conducted remotely. Many services (e.g. healthcare) provided partially online, through collaboration between SMEs Digital divides narrowed due to focus on usability, lower cost and greater demand-driven innovation
6. Smooth Trip - the knowledge-based Internet economy Internet development incremental, in response to commercial and public needs. Clients are mobile with augmented reality, projected UIs and fluid interaction with “things” and environmental sensors Strong govt. emphasis on consumer protection and privacy increases user trust and online interaction Some govts. impose restrictions on access in line with legal and cultural norms; some businesses use increased controls to capture greater revenue share. Online user resistance to both strengthens
7. Going Green - the green Internet economy Internet is foundation of a sustainable society and an emerging green economy based around monitoring, controlling, adjustment, management, automation and substitution of carbon-intensive activities ICTs become much more energy-efficient. Virtualised server farms migrate seamlessly between under-utilised renewable energy sources Mobile platforms (inc. LEO comms), computational linguistics, geospatial technologies and visual analytics become key to disaster response
8. Going Green - the green Internet economy Home working becomes norm; telepresence replaces much business travel and some tourism Social networking tools reduce social divisions within and between nations, and used to build political support for collective action to cope with environmental disasters Remote regions and developing countries highly connected as the basis for outsourcing of much information work
9. Commercial Big Brother Internet replaces broadcast TV, as a largely commercial channel for entertainment, retailing and advertising High-speed access is built to the home only with govt. subsidy and removal of regulatory constraints, strengthening large ISP dominance Immersive, interactive video content consumes most user time and 95% of bandwidth. Access is mainly through DRM-heavy proprietary hardware Merged ISPs/search engines/social networking sites offer walled gardens featuring high-quality access to video content and interactive services. They slowly merge with major entertainment conglomerates, with close links to retailers
10. Commercial Big Brother Tacit cooperation between governments and the providers of the new “opiate of the masses”, who block access to politically controversial content. Internet becomes increasingly fragmented and nationalised Users are intensively profiled to support targeted advertising, with no effective global privacy regulation Security concerns used to justify lock-down of network, with e-ID requirements severely restricting anonymous speech and data retention laws squeezing user privacy
11. Emergence of the e-Demos Power migrates to the people in a user-built ‘Connected Society’. “Prosumers” have a wide choice of net access, easily-programmable devices and tools to build shared secure environments for work and leisure Strong political demand for “user rights” such as privacy, free expression, transparency, trust, fraud-resistance, consumer protection and fair, honest governance Much stronger participation in online communities, which build social cohesion and political power of formerly disconnected minority groups
12. Emergence of the e-Demos Heavy demand in developing world for low-cost access devices leads to a global market of 10bn+ clients and peer production of many services Low barriers to entry lead to a global online marketplace of billions of micro-enterprises. Infrastructure operators are regulated as public utilities Security mechanisms are collaborative rather than controlling A messy, inefficient and highly diverse society populates the “managed chaos” of the Internet
13. Goals for today Compare the different scenarios, in terms of their social and economic impact: which elements from each are the most desirable for a more sustainable (or otherwise better) world? How will current technological, social and economic trends lead to the different scenarios proposed? What is the impact of different architectural choices (NGN, clean-slate approaches, non-IP, end-to-end principle, openness, embedded security) in enabling the different scenarios? How will policy options (e.g. network neutrality) impact on the emergence of the different scenarios? What should be the future priorities for ICT research in Internet architectures and infrastructures?
