The growth of the Internet continues its staggering pace. According to recent estimates, there are now over a quarter-billion Internet users worldwide, with that number expected to more than double during the next five years. The "total number of host computers and users have been growing at about 33 percent every six months since 1988, with some 72 million host computers on the Internet currently serving users in 218 countries and territories." (1)

As we enter the next stage of Internet development -- "virtually anywhere, anytime" access -- we face the dual challenge of maintaining the Internet's unfettered and largely unregulated expansion and achieving seamless, global, high-speed, efficient and economic wireless access solutions. Web information and services will soon be accessible from a wide range of mobile devices, including cellular phones, pagers, in-car computers, as well as palmtop and other small mobile devices. Moreover, emerging broadband and third generation wireless technologies will serve as efficient and economic Internet access alternatives for developing countries lacking a sophisticated communications infrastructure. This is critical given that compared to the 180 million people with personal computers, there are almost 400 million mobile phone subscribers(2), with the number of digital phone subscriptions expected to increase to one billion in the next five years. (3)

Just as has been the case in the wired Internet, interoperability and openness will be key to the wireless Internet future. These are global challenges. In today's global economy, no single region of the world can act alone to ensure interoperability. Cross-industry and international cooperation in the development and deployment of wireless and mobile computing standards and ubiquitous wireless data services and applications is critical.

Internet Standards - Global and Open

Interoperability of information technology is extremely important in the information age. The development and widespread adoption of common protocols (conventions and standards that define how each layer of the Internet operates) to ensure seamless interoperability have been essential to the rapid growth of the Internet. Equally essential to the Internet's growth has been the open nature of the specifications and protocols developed for its operation. The Internet standards development process has differed in some fundamental respects from the more traditional, often proprietary-focused telecommunications standards-setting process.

In the case of the former, different bodies have created the open protocols that specify the different parts of the Internet. The Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) is an open international community of network designers, operators, vendors, and researchers concerned with the smooth evolution of the Internet, and operates under the auspices of the Internet Society. The IETF continues to develop the Internet Protocol (IP) and the other protocols that define the basic communication service of the Internet. This group also collaboratively enhanced the early protocols for applications such as e-mail and is contributing to the development of specifications for IP telephony, with specific challenges in the area of IPv6(4), IP mobility(5), and security. Academic and other industry consortia have also defined other protocols. For instance, the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) is developing open, interoperable specifications to reinforce and extend the utility of the Internet. These protocols, standards and specifications, once developed, are openly available and used as the basis of products that are sold to the various entities involved in the deployment and operation of the Internet.

Next Generation Wireless Standard-Setting

Just as the continued evolution and success of the Internet hinges on the continued and timely promulgation and adoption of common and open standards, so too will the future of the wireless Internet increasingly depend on global and openly available solutions.

Telecommunications standards setting, including the development of air interface and network standards for existing and next-generation wireless systems, have not traditionally produced the open and intrinsically global standards typical of the Internet. As in the broader information technology industry, telecommunications standards are generally developed through a voluntary industry consensus process, but in a disparate manner and under the auspices of numerous national and regional standards development organizations. In recent years, due to the increasingly global nature of telecommunications and convergence with the broader information technology industry, standardization activities have increasingly focused on the driving need for interoperability, manufacturing economies of scale, and seamless and economic delivery of services. The so-called "Third Generation Partnership Projects" bringing together regional standards organizations to collaborate on the specifications for third generation mobile systems were created last year in recognition of these new global realities.

Similarly, the work occurring under the auspices of the Wireless Application Protocol (WAP) Forum, a non-profit industry association open to all industry, is an example of an important area for next-generation standard development. The WAP Forum has published a global wireless protocol specification intended to be independent of specific wireless transmission standards and extendable to various transport options and device types. WAP is intended to provide operators, infrastructure and terminal manufacturers and content developers a common environment for the development of Internet access and other value-added services for mobile phones and other wireless data devices. The current WAP design does not provide for end-to-end IP-level communication, and GIP recommends coordination among the IETF, WAP Forum, the IPv6 Forum, and other interested parties, to review the WAP architecture for possible evolution to achieve end-to-end IP level transparency. The WAP Forum is also working closely with the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) to define and promote next-generation web specifications that support full participation of wireless devices on the World Wide Web.

Likewise, the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) development of Wireless LAN (IEEE802.11) specifications is being carried out with a global scope and a focus on interoperability. The goal of this specification is to allow compliant products to interoperate without explicit collaboration between vendors -- preserving vendor flexibility and innovation.

Conclusion

The ultimate success of the wireless Internet will rely in part on how quickly and fully the traditional national/regional approach to telecommunications standardization gives way to a more global approach to the development and widespread adoption of common - and open - standards that ensure interoperability and efficiency. Initiatives such as those outlined above, which aim at developing voluntary, global, open standards and protocols for wireless data and Internet technologies should be further encouraged.

The Global Internet Project

The Global Internet Project (GIP) is an international group of senior executives committed to fostering continued growth of the Internet. Members come from leading Internet-centric companies representing the telecommunications, software, financial services, and content sectors. GIP participants are well-known leaders in the Internet Revolution and represent companies based in Asia, Europe, and North America. Dr. James Clark, former chairman of Netscape Communications Corporation, founded the group. John Patrick, Vice President for Internet Technology at IBM, is the current chairman of the GIP.

GIP participants believe that to ensure continued growth and innovation, the Internet must be kept free of unnecessary international regulations and national laws that impede or inhibit its growth. Old, outdated, national regulatory models should not be applied to the Internet. Instead, new international and non-governmental approaches to policy must be developed, that will be flexible enough to keep pace with the rapid evolution of technology and the marketplace. Often these approaches will rely upon market mechanisms for self-regulation, rather than government regulation.

The GIP also is committed to "connecting the unconnected" - increasing Internet access in developing countries by encouraging governments to adopt policies that foster innovation, liberalization, investment, and free market competition.

For more details, visit the GIP Web site at http://www.gip.org/.

1 - "What is the Internet (and What Makes It Work)," by Robert E. Kahn and Vint Cerf, Internet Policy Institute, December 1999.

2 - "Telecommunications: The world in your pocket," The Economist (Survey of Telecommunications), October 9, 1999.

3 - "First Voice, Now Data," by G. Christian Hill, The Wall Street Journal Reports: Telecommunications, page R4, September 1999.

4 - In the next stage of Internet development, we can expect billions of additional devices to connect to the Internet, with a requirement to be "always on" for instant access. This would place impossible strain on the current limited numeric address space of the Internet, but will be easily met by use of IPv6 with its vastly expanded address space.

5 - Also, the recently established Mobile Wireless Internet Forum (MWIF), is working to "identify and resolve issues surrounding the development of key specifications and to enable early implementation of IP wireless networks."