Special Symposia

Symposium on the Future Internet and Its Impact on Next-Generation Optical Networks

Select symposia presentations are available for download. Click on the titles below to open a pdf of the presentations.

View Biswanath Mukherjee, 2009 OFC Program Co-Chair, discuss the Future Internet Symposium.

Tuesday, March 24
2:00 p.m.–6:30 p.m., including a coffee break

Organizers:
Adel A. M. Saleh, DARPA, USA
Jane M. Simmons, Monarch Network Architects, USA

The Internet continues to evolve with innovative applications, increasing bandwidth requirements, changing traffic and usage patterns, and debates over policy. This evolution is clearly intertwined with the performance and economics of the underlying optical networks. This symposium will explore the future Internet, and how it will impact the architecture and technology of next-generation optical networks, from the backbone core to the access edge. Several leaders in the field will present their visions and predictions; they will then respond to questions and comments from the audience.

Speakers:

Andrew Odlyzko, Ph.D.
Professor, School of Mathematics and Digital Technology Center, University of Minnesota, USA
Future Internet: Drastic Change, or Muddling Through?

Abstract:
There are glaring deficiencies in the current Internet. On the other hand, this same Internet is still better than any other technology that is widely available, and is still gaining momentum in the marketplace. Whether a drastic reengineering of the Internet will take place will depend on a complex interaction of decision by users and service providers.

Biography:
Andrew Odlyzko has had extensive experience in research and management at Bell Labs, AT&T Labs, and the University of Minnesota. He has worked on computational complexity, cryptography, number theory, combinatorics, coding theory, analysis, probability theory, e-commerce, and economics of data networks. He may be known best for an early debunking of the myth of Internet traffic doubling every three months and for demonstrating that connectivity has traditionally mattered much more for society than content.

Lawrence Roberts, Ph.D.
Chairman, Founder, Anagran, USA
Internet Evolution into the Future

Abstract:
The Internet traffic has increased by 10^12 since 1970 and survived with little change. However, to adequately support the current and future applications, substantial improvements are required for QoS, throughput, fairness, and security. The problems will be examined and potential improvements outlined.

Biography:
Dr. Roberts is currently Founder, Chairman and Chief Architect of Anagran Inc. Anagran is currently manufacturing flow rate management network equipment, the first major improvement in packet network technology in the 40 years since Dr. Roberts designed and managed the first packet network, the ARPANET (now the Internet). At that time, in 1967, Dr. Roberts became the Chief Scientist of ARPA taking on the task of designing, funding, and managing a radically new communications network concept (packet switching) to interconnect computers worldwide. The first for nodes of the ARPANET were installed in 1969 and by 1973 when Dr. Roberts left ARPA to become CEO of Telenet (now part of Sprint), the concept of packet switching had been well proven to the world and the ARPANET had grown to 52 computers including a packet radio subnet and a satellite extension to Europe. Dr. Roberts has BS, MS, and Ph.D. Degrees from MIT and has received numerous awards for his work, including the Secretary of Defense Meritorious Service Medal, the L.M. Ericsson prize for research in data communications, in 1992 the W. Wallace McDowell Award, in 1998 the ACM SIGCOMM Award, in 2000 the IEEE Internet Award, in 2001 the National Academy of Engineering Draper Award, in 2002 the Principe de Asturias Award, and in 2005 the NEC Computer and Communication Award.

Bill St. Arnaud, P.Eng.
Chief Research Officer, CANARIE Inc., Canada
Next Generation Internet to Reduce Global Warming (G-NGI) using Novel Optical Network Architectures

Abstract:
One of the major design criteria for next generation Internet networks will be to reduce the carbon footprint of these networks. All optical networks with minimum of electronic switches and routers will have significantly less energy consumption and CO2 emissions than today's electronic routed networks. New optical Internet architectures such as the PROMPT G-GNI where repeaters and switches are powered by windmills or solar panels with no connection to the electrical grid will allow the deployment of next generation zero carbon Internet networks often referred to as "follow the sun/follow the wind" networks.  The advent of 1000G (terabit) and higher speed waves over existing DWDM systems using coherent detection and twisted lighted will also enable the deployment of many virtual optical networks on top of a common "follow the sun/follow the wind" network substrate.

Biography:
Bill St. Arnaud is Chief Research Officer for CANARIE Inc. Canada's Advanced Internet Development Organization. At CANARIE Bill St. Arnaud has been responsible for the coordination and implementation of Canada's next generation optical Internet initiative called CA*net 4. He has also been the principal architect of the concept of Customer Owned Networks and User Controlled Lightpaths (UCLP) allow users to create their own Internet network topologies and peerings.  Currently he is leading a Green IT initiative of encouraging carbon rewards rather than imposing  carbon taxes to help reduce output of green house gas emissions, through the provision of free fiber to the home and other free Internet services and applications. Bill St. Arnaud is member of various committees and boards. In 2002 he was featured by TIME Magazine Canada as the engineer who is wiring together advanced Canadian science. In 2005 he also won the World Technology Summit award for Communications.

Andrew Houghton, Ph.D.
Deputy Head of Unit, European Commission, Belgium
Optical Networks and Future Internet Research in the European Framework Programme 7

Abstract:
Future Internet services and applications will require major enhancements to the capability and performance of the underlying optical network infrastructure. In addition to the continuous demand for increased capacity, at lower cost, the Internet is now a critical infrastructure, which must be reliable, secure, energy-efficient and manageable. This  presentation reviews the research on future optical networks and packet transport layer integration in the EU FP7, to meet these demanding, and sometimes conflicting, requirements.

Biography:
Andrew Houghton is Deputy Head of the Unit "Future Networks" in the Directorate-General Information Society and Media of the European Commission, in Brussels, Belgium. He received a B.Sc. degree from the University of Sussex, UK, and a Ph.D. from the University of Nottingham, UK. After five years with BT Research Labs, he joined STC /Northern Telecom Optoelectronics, in production of components for optical communications systems. He then joined the European Commission in 1992 as a Project Officer, initially in the area of optical networks and subsequently in the areas of "Broadband for All" and "Mobile and Wireless Beyond 3G". He is currently responsible for projects of the ICT FP7 Research Programme, in the "Network of the Future" Objective.

Tomonori Aoyama, Ph.D.
Professor, Keio University, Japan
Toward New Generation Network - Beyond Internet and Next Generation Network

Abstract:
This presentation introduces R&D activities in Japan for a new generation network (NWGN) which has clean-slate designed architecture to meet main requirements in 2020s. The fundamental principle for the NWGN architecture and key technologies to realize NWGN are shown.

Biography:
Dr. Tomonori Aoyama joined NTT Public Corporation in 1969, and then had been engaged in research and development on communication networks and systems in the Electrical Communication Laboratories. From 1973 to 1974, he stayed in MIT as a visiting scientist to study digital signal processing technology. In 1994, he was appointed to Director of NTT Opto-Electronics Laboratory, and in 1995 he became Director of NTT Optical Network Systems Laboratory. In 1997, he left NTT, and joined the University of Tokyo as Professor in Graduate School of Information Science and Technology. Since April 2006, he is Professor of Research Institute for Digital Media and Content at Keio University. His research activity covers new generation networking technologies including photonic networking, ubiquitous networking and broadband applications with super high definition images.

He is an IEEE Fellow, IEICE (Institute of Electronics, Information and Communication Engineers, Japan) Fellow, and a member of Science Council of Japan. He is currently the President-elect of IEICE. He serves as Program Coordinator for the new generation network architecture in National Institute of Information and Communications Technology (NICT).  He also serves as Chairman of Photonic Internet Forum (PIF), and as Vice-Chair of New Generation Network Promotion Forum and Ubiquitous Networking Forum. He is President of NPO- Digital Cinema Consortium of Japan (DCCJ).