Internet Access Technologies

Currently internet users can access the internet backbone network in a variety of ways. Perhaps the most familiar to researchers and academics as well as high-end business users is via wired LANs generally using access technologies based on Ethernet or its variants. These technologies are well-advanced from a theoretical and practical viewpoint and probably don't offer many research opportunities. Most home and small business users access the internet through Internet Service Providers (ISPs) via dial-up connections over the public switched telephone network, or some type of broadband connections such as multiple ISDN lines, xDSL or cable modems. PSTN connections are limited to tens of kb/s while the current broadband access technologies are generally limited to hundreds of kb/s through to MB/s or tens of MB/s. There are a number of research challenges associated with these so-called "last mile" access technologies, although, again, the opportunities for fundamental research work in these cases is also probably rather limited. However the management of ISPs including the provision of Quality of Service (QoS) to clients, multiple service classes, pricing issues and the dynamic optimization of backbone utilization by ISPs are potentially rich in research challenges in the areas of expertise of ACoRN members.

Wireless Internet access will become commonplace.

The most rapidly increasing manner of access to the internet is by wireless devices. These include 2.5G and 3G and emerging 4G cellular services, broadband wireless access technologies such as 802.16 and wireless local loop, and emerging packet switched satellite systems. All these area offer rich research opportunities. either for the improvement of existing services, and the specification of new technologies for future services. The integration of wireless and second generation mobility-aware internet and associated QoS issues remains one of the greatest challenges to researchers in the lower layers of telecommunications systems. It appears almost certain that the facilitation of these types of services will require cross-layer issues to be addressed, representing a significant challenge to the existing paradigm of system architectures. Add to this the issues associated with the convergence of telecommunications, entertainment and information services, then we have an extremely rich and challenging mix of fundamental and applied research problems which requires precisely the range and types of expertise which can only be assembled with a research network of the type proposed in ACoRN.