Present Internet is experiencing serious problems such as lack of usable addresses, traffic congestion, security problems. Also, international Internet traffic is increasing 5 times a year as users prefer multimedia data rather than simple data. Therefore, many advanced countries are planning for Next Generation Internet whose speed is hundred to thousand times faster than the current speed.
In Korea, the number of Internet host computers is very small considering tele-density. Therefore Korea should enlarge the number of host computers before constructing Next Generation Internet. Nurturing ISP & multimedia industries, introduction of various kinds of Internet bill, fostering Internet education, activating public Internet are needed in order to increase the number of host computers.
There can be two approaches for constructing Next Generation Internet; one approach is through the by Gigabit Ethernet and the other is through the ATM. Even though the approach by Gigabit Ethernet has clear advantage because of the interoperability with the existing Ethernet & easiness for new technology development, it is not adequate for supporting of real time multimedia services with high QoS. On the other hand, the approach by ATM is the best solution considering technology trend which ATM is expected to combine all wire & wireless services. But the approach by ATM has disadvantages because of the insufficient QoS, immature technology & high construction cost.
To construct Next Generation Internet in Korea, the first step has to connect national test bed with APAN and to develop NGI technologies in providing Internet services and to apply the developed applications into public Internet. Second step is to expend the NGI technologies into educational Internet & research Internet. At last, based on the result for the first & second steps and technology trends, private companies can decide their investments.
If private companies adopt the approach by ATM as right direction for Next Generation Internet, they use national ATM Internet together with the public, educational, research authorities. But the traffic of the network is over surplus in the future, private companies can consider constructing a separating Internet network.
If private companies adopt the approach by Gigabit as the right direction for Next Generation Internet, they construct the Gigabit network. Gigabit network is interacted with national ATM Internet as well as existing Internet.
