Future internet research and experimentation

Abstract

The research community worldwide has increasingly drawn its attention to the weaknesses of the current Internet. Many proposals are addressing the perceived problems, ranging from new enhanced protocols to fix specific problems up to the most radical proposal to redesign and deploy a fully new Internet. Most of the problems in the current Internet are rooted in the tremendous pace of increase of its use. As a consequence there was little time to address the deficiencies of the Internet from an architectural point of view. Within FP7, the European Commission has facilitated the creation of European expert groups around the theme FIRE "Future Internet Research and Experimentation". FIRE has two related dimensions: on one hand, promoting experimentally-driven long-term, visionary research on new paradigms and networking concepts and architectures for the future Internet; on the other hand, building a large-scale experimentation facility supporting both medium- and long-term research on networks and services by gradually federating existing and new testbeds for emerging or future Internet technologies. By addressing future challenges for the Internet such as mobility, scalability, security and privacy, this new experimentally-driven approach is challenging the mainstream perceptions for future Internet development. This new initiative is intended to complement the more industrially-driven approaches which are addressed under the FP7 Objective "The Network of the Future" within the FP7-ICT Workprogramme 2007-08. FIRE is focused on exploring new and radically better technological solutions for the future Internet, while preserving the "good" aspects of the current Internet, in terms of openness, freedom of expression and ubiquitous access. The FIRE activities are being launched in the 2nd ICT call, which closes in October 2007, under the FP7-ICT Objective 1.6 "New Paradigms and Experimental Facilities" (budget ε40m). Projects are envisaged to start in early 2008.