Report to John H. Gibbons regarding plans for the Next Generation Internet (NGI)

Dr. John H. Gibbons
Assistant to the President for Science and Technology
Director, White House Office of Science and Technology Policy
Executive Office of the President
Old Executive Office Building, Room 424
17th & Pennsylvania Ave, N.W.
Washington, D.C. 20502

Dear Dr. Gibbons:

The President's Information Technology Advisory Committee on High Performance Computing and Communications, Information Technology, and the Next Generation Internet has completed an initial review of the plans for the Next Generation Internet (NGI). This letter is intended to convey the conclusions of that assessment.

We enthusiastically support the motivation, goals, and proposed investments embodied in the NGI program. We strongly encourage even closer coordination between the federal NGI Initiative, the academic community's complementary program known as Internet 2, and related federal and industrial efforts.

The U.S. Government's Internet investments have been incredibly successful. The Internet has grown at nearly 100 percent per year since 1988 and Internet traffic has been growing at a rate of 400 percent per year recently. The Internet has created jobs and whole new industries. American business and government organizations are increasingly dependent on the Internet.

We see signs of frailty and limitations in the Internet's current capabilities. This frailty is being exacerbated by high bandwidth access and multimedia applications. The solutions to these problems are beyond the scope of any single institution, company or industry. The NGI, with its broad agenda and ability to involve government, research institutions, and the business sector, is a timely program that will address these problems.

By the year 2000, more than 50 percent of the U.S. population will have access to the Internet. If the coming exponential improvements in computing and communications are to benefit American industry and the public we must make a few key strategic investments in research and development now. NGI is one of those key strategic investments. NGI will help to create the environment in which R&D breakthroughs are possible. The success of NGI will depend on the creation, through this research, of breakthrough applications that depend on it.

All sectors must invest to benefit from future generations of the Internet. All institutions (notably health care and education) will need to adapt their facilities, procedures, and practices to take advantage of the results of NGI research. For example, campus networks must be upgraded, digital libraries implemented, and health care systems networked. NGI provides a framework to involve industry through pre-competitive cooperative research.

The federal government has a unique role to play in stimulating progress. The NGI program will provide enormous intellectual, social, and economic benefits to the nation and is the natural next step towards a global information infrastructure. The NGI program is essential to sustain U.S. technological leadership in computing and communications and enhance U.S. economic competitiveness and commercial leadership.

Yours,