Opportunities and Challenges Brought by the Internet

Jiang Lintao

The Internet has made an important part of the national information infrastructure of China.Without the Internet,social informationization cannot be popularized to an extent as today.Upon the coming of a new year,we especially invited Mr.Jiang Lintao,a famous communication expert and the chief engineer of China Academy of Telecommunication Research of the Ministry of Information Industry,to give us his opinions on the opportunities and challenges brought by the Internet.

According to Mr.Jiang,the appearance of the Internet has brought great impact on telecommunications networks.It has broken the monopoly of the telecom industry in telecom services and promoted the development of technologies.Characterized by continuous innovation and aggressiveness,Internet services guarantee their dominating position in broadband networks,and put the telecom industry in a quite passive position.The telecom industry is stilllooking for new development direction and breakthroughs in technology so as to regain its leading position.

Mr.Jiang also pointed out that the future of both telecom networks and the Internet should be next generation network,which will be the main body of the future national information infrastructure.The essential features of the next generation network should be as follows:it should be secure and trustworthy enough to safeguard users'rights,national security and social stability;it should be scalable enough to allow sustainable development;it should be compatible with current main technologies,co-exist with them and allow their graceful evolution;and it should provide a network platform for everybody to innovate.

1 Benefits from the Internet

1.1 Accelerating Global Informationization Process

S ocial informationization is a goal human beings have pursued for a long time.To achieve this goal,Information Communications Technology(ICT)experts have made lots of efforts.Early in 1970s,the data network and its service system were proposed and developed.The International Telecommunication Union-Telecommunication Standardization Sector(ITU-T)has also done much work in standardization of voice data technology(modem),data network(X.25),message handling system(X.400)and Videotex services(T.100 series).In 1980s to 1990s,some developed countries made considerable progress in social informationization.However,it is until the popularization of the Internet that socialinformationization developed in a large scale and expands all around the world.Without the Internet,social informationization would not be as popular as it is today.

There are mainly three reasons why the Internet can quickly promote the process of social informationization.First,IPtechnologies are adopted as the uniform technical standard,unifying the development directions of information technologies.Thus,an industrial scale is formed and social informationization is sped up.Second,the Web technology and Web-based services adopted in the Internet provide a supportive technicalplatform for service expansion,which significantly lower the entry threshold of service innovation.With this platform,everybody is given a wide innovation space and can participate in the innovation;therefore,the vitalities of all persons are inspired.Third,the“management after development”mode of the Internet enables it to develop in an unrestrained environment.As a result,the Internet was popularized and widely applied in a very short time,which,in turn,greatly sped up the development of the Internet.

Biography

Jiang Lintao

Jiang Lintao is the chief engineer of China Academy of Telecommunication Research of the Ministry of Information Industry.He also serves as the chairman of IPand Multimedia Standard Working Group of China Communications Standardization Association,vice chairman of ITU-TSG 13,and a member of the 1st,2nd and 3rd sessions of Multimedia Expert Group of Communication Technology Area of High-Tech R&D Program of China(863 Program).Over the past years,he has been engaged in the R&D and standard ization of multimed ia,digital communications and IPtechnologies.He has received special government allowance since 1992,and was awarded"Youth Science and Technology Expert with Significant Contributions"by the government in 1996.

1.2 Promoting Development of Information Technology

The introduction of the Internet has greatly promoted the technological progress in information industry.Before the Internet was introduced,the telecom industry monopolized the huge communications markets and made enormous profits that they got contented with the status quo.On the other hand,the profits of information service industry were not enough to drive the development of the telecom industry.As a result,both the

The emergence of the Internet broke the monopolized situation of the telecom industry,leading to competition in the communications and information field information service industry and the social informationization developed very slowly.

The emergence of the Internet broke the monopolized situation of the telecom industry,leading to competition in the communications and information field.As a heterogeneous technology,the Internet system challenges the telecom technologies;its generation and development are not restricted by traditionaltechnologies.The free and unrestrained development environment speeds up the progress and popularization of the Internet technologies.In addition to a wide range of applications,the Internet offers a large space for innovation.Driven by application demands,network technologies have stepped into a high-speed development stage.

1.3 Making the Important Part of National Information Infrastructure

At present,all services in enterprise networks are IP-based,and so are the new services in telecom networks.The development of enterprise and commercial networks proves that it is feasible to apply IPtechnology in services.The rapid development of the Internet makes it a de facto national information infrastructure.Currently,the informationization of the national economy depends largely on the Internet and Internet related technologies.The technical development direction of next generation network has been determined,that is,using the IPtechnology as the core technology,and it is clear that the Internet will be applied worldwide.

2 Problems Brought by the Internet

2.1 Technical Basics

2.1.1 Basic Technical Names,Terms,Concepts and Definitions

The telecom industry had a complete,publicly recognized theoretical system where the concepts,names and terms were clearly defined.But the situation changed after the technicaltheory of the Internet was introduced.The definitions of many terms and concepts are different in the two theoreticalsystems,making many technical issues confusing.For example,as to the layered modelof digital telecom network,the Open System Interconnection(OSI)Reference Modelclearly divides and defines seven layers.The physical layer provides solutions to point-to-point physical connection,including channel coding and related technologies;the data link layer solves the multiplexing problem in point-to-point communications,including framing and multiplexing;the network layer handles the end-to-end digital communications;the transport layer manages process multiplexing in end-to-end digital communications,etc.But in the theoretical system of the Internet,the OSImodel is regarded as out-of-date and extremely complicated and is thus negated.However,up to now,the Internet community has not yet established a commonly recognized layered model.Consequently,the related concepts,terms and their definitions become quite confusing.A good example of this confusion is the Ethernet technology,which is widely applied currently.According to the OSI model,this technology not only includes the framing technology for point-to-point data multiplexing,but also has the end-to-end communication capability.So it has both layer 2 technology and layer 3 technology.But according to the Internet community,Ethernet is a layer 2 technology.

Meanwhile,with the wide application of the Internet,lots of technologies and terms that are commonly used in computer,such as middleware and Application Programming Interface(API),have been introduced into the telecom industry.But the old concepts of the industry,i.e.,interface,communication process and protocol,are still in use;so,problems are raised:In which case should the new technologies and terms from computer be used?In which case should the old concepts of the telecom industry be used?What's the relation between them,replaceable,complementary,or others?With lots of new names and terms being produced,the definitions of many terms and concepts become ambiguous,resulting to many problems in standardization.People even do not know which should be standardized and which can be non-standardized.The confusion in technical theory hinders the development of the industry.

2.1.2 Technical Development Directions of Services and Service networks

As to the technicaldevelopment direction of service networks,the public opinion tends to choose the Internet,which has been beyond praise since its birth.We can hear or see the fact that lots of services are generated in the Internet.On broadband networks,all services and service traffics come from the Internet and there is no telecom services nor any services designed or developed by the telecoms industry.The actual situation of network services justifies the public's preference of the Internet.

The research and development of the prototype of an Internet service often needs only a few people,and the services are usually independent.For example,the development of the prototype of an instant message system can be completed by one person.The prototype of PPlive,which is an influential online TVsystem in China,was developed by one person in three months.In the development of an Internet service,it is not required to conduct system design,establish standards in advance,coordinate or compromise with other services,and consider interconnection.Once a service is developed,it is uploaded onto the Internet for use,and meantime,it willbe continuously improved until completion.This development approach of the Internet services is fast and efficient,and it can better offer services.Currently,all services on the broadband networks are developed in this way.

In contrast,the service development of telecom networks is embarrassing.Almost seven years have past since the telecom industry recognized IP technology would be the main technology in the future network and service development,and determined the IPtechnology to be applied in telecom networks.Thousands of researchers have participated in the research,standardization and equipment development,but not an acceptable broadband or narrowband telecom service has been developed.As a result,people begin to doubt the capability of telecom industry and the correctness of its technical direction.

Shall we adopt the technical direction of the Internet and completely give up the direction of the telecom network in the development of future services?This is a serious question.The selection of technical direction willhave a long-term impact on the development of technologies.

2.2 Business Model

A good business model is the basis for healthy development of an industry chain.Any business cannot go on if it's not getting any profit.Being a commercial service,the Internet is without exception.Technically,Internet designers have not taken into account any means for its commercialization since the very beginning;so,the Internet was born with weak commercialization capability.The commercialization of the Internet started in the middle of 1990s,and its commercialization process has witnessed the emergence,growth and collapse of the dot-com bubble.The Internet is not developing in an orderly and stable manner;rather,it is developing in a burst-out and avalanche way.The development of the Internet is purely an operation of the capital market,where lots of money has been invested.

Therefore, in its commercialization process, the Internet has developed neither a healthy business model of its own, nor a technology to support a healthy business model.

Therefore,in its commercialization process,the Internet has developed neither a healthy business model of its own,nor a technology to support a healthy business model.

The bearer network of the Internet(i.e.,IP network)is a network providing“best effort”transmission.That is to say,it just does its best efforts to transmit information in either real time services or non-real time services.For non-real time services,this transmission mode functions quite well,and this is reflected in their development on the Internet.But for real time services,this mode does not work very well.As only“best effort”transmission is provided,the service quality can be guaranteed only when the network resources are in good condition;otherwise,the quality willbe poor.In the Internet,the Quality of Service(QoS)of real time services cannot be defined and specified in a quantitative way;thus,no QoScommitment can be made.If it's free of charge,real time services without any quality assurance are acceptable,but if a certain fee is charged,it is difficult to say whether the users will accept them.Restricted by the best effort transmission mode,the Internet does not technically support the business model where real time services are charged.

Currently,the business model of the Internet is“charging on access but free in services”.Most Internet services are free,allowing many users to enjoy them.For the“free lunch”services,the users naturally do not expect more in respect of QoS.Good or bad QoS,they can accept the free services.Internet users have already been accustomed to this business model that it would be quite a difficult thing to change it and the user's consumption custom.

It is still unknown whether the business model of the Internet is reasonable and whether it can promote the healthy and sustainable development of the industry.A basic rule of commercial services is to offer different users with different services and to gain different returns.Making the business model of the Internet to conform to this basic rule is an important research subject.In studying the model,it would be beneficial to introduce the reasonable business models of the real world into the Internet,especially the modelwhere differentiated services

In a relatively long period of time, Internet users strictly followed the principle of self-discipline;thus, the operation of the Internet was kept stable.are provided for different users and 20%users pay over 80%expenses.

2.3 Security

The core idea of the Internet is user-oriented,providing the most open platform for the user.It provides users with transparent channels,and users are given the largest freedom to use the network,including intercepting,modifying and attacking the information of other users;thus,the network is transparent to the user and there is not any measure to protect user information.On the other hand,the users,not confident in the Internet security,have to invest extra expenses and adopt lots of security and encryption technologies to protect their information that the user information becomes opaque in the network.This opacity of user information increases the costs and difficulties of network monitoring and enforcement.In other words,the security philosophy of the Internet decreases the costs of network attacks and crime commitment,but increases the costs of protection and enforcement.The current situation of Internet security is as follows:more and more money have been invested and a small part of the existing problems have been solved,but with the development of Internet technologies,more new,wide-range problems emerge.The Internet becomes more and more difficult to manage,and potential security risks have become quite serious.

Therefore,the security of the Internet should be given more attention.

Security is the biggest problem of the Internet.With the rapid development of Internet applications,the dependency of the society on the Internet increases.The Internet has become the main body of the national information infrastructure.The application of the Internet,especially the application of Web2.0 and Web3.0 and“irrational”use of P2P technology,has sped up the production,propagation and spreading of malign information.With Web2.0 and Web3.0 being applied,some works,which were originally to be done by a website,can be completed by one person;and due to the irrational use of P2Ptechnology,large equipment and transmission channels are no longer the prerequisites for transmitting the information.

Therefore,the traffic increases and the transmission rate become faster.As a result,network crimes,such as malicious attacks and cheating,are increasing,which are unsteady factors of the society.

2.4 Operation

As a new media,the Internet is playing an increasingly important role.It has become a main channel for people to acquire news,and the introduction of Web2.0 and P2Ptechnologies enables any user to be the source of information release and propagation.The production methods of Internet information come one after another and become increasingly convenient,and the information propagation approaches tend to be simpler and simpler;but the costs of information production and propagation gradually decrease.As the dependency of the society on the Internet increases,the influence of the Internet enlarges.As a result,the security problem has become an important issue that should raise the public's concern.Meanwhile,the opacity of user information in the network makes network monitoring an“impossible”mission.Although more and more costs have been paid,the passive situation has not changed.

The Internet is a network designed on the basis of“users'self-discipline”.It assumes all users are self-disciplined persons who are modest in using the network resources.Transmission Control Protocol(TCP),a famous communication protocol used in the Internet,is a good example of design based on the self-discipline of users.In a relatively long period of time,Internet users strictly followed the principle of self-discipline;thus,the operation of the Internet was kept stable.But with the expansion of Internet services and the rapid growth of its applications,this principle was completely abandoned.The predatory consumption of network resources is increasing,especially after the wide application of P2Ptechnology.To improve their own experience,users greedily rob and control network resources.The new generation of users does not follow the self-discipline principle at all.On the other hand,Internet technologies have not been substantially improved.Therefore,the relation between the network operators and the service providers,which was originally harmonious and co-existing,is now changed.There are more conflicts between them.Moreover,the service network tends to develop from a benign parasite to a malign one,resulting in a serious distortion and even fracture of the communication and information industry chain,and bringing great impact on the whole industry.Currently,countries all over the world are highly concerned with this matter and have invested a lot in the related research.

3 Internet and Telecom Transformation

3.1 Impact of the Internet on Telecom Services

The development of telecom networks has experienced three stages:analogue network,Time Division Multiplexing(TDM)digital network and packet switched digital network.At the beginning of 1990s,the packet technology was introduced to the telecom industry.But in making the technical standard,people paid excessive attention to perfection in technical specification and QoS.As a result,the development of packet services has been restricted in the industry.On the other hand,the Internet is a heterogeneous technology,not bound by any telecom standards.It has solved the basic communication problem with a new approach.The introduction of the Internet has not only broken the monopoly of telecom operators in telecom services,but also accelerated the application of new technologies and promoted technical development.

With respect to services,the telecom network suffers stronger impact of the Internet.Firstly,the“closed”feature of telecom services places themselves in an unfavorable position in the competition with the Internet services because lots of software enterprises cannot participate in their development.Telecom services often require a whole network design and a standard development process that targets large-scale industrialization.This dramatically complicates and lengthens their research and development.On the contrary,the Internet is open.This openness feature,especially the peer-to-peer feature of IPnetworks,significantly simplifies the development of services and allows lots of software enterprises to participate in the service development;so,the developed services can quickly take a strong market position.In fact,the core services of the Internet(e.g.,Google,Skype)are developed by smallenterprises.Secondly,the entry threshold of the Internet services is very low.The Internet services do not need to pay any fee for bearer networks;thus,the costs are considerably reduced.For example,its conversation service just requires address resolution.Besides,the system equipment for Internet services is quite simple,with such a low cost that can be afforded by any small company.

Thirdly,Internet services,either real time or non-real time,follow the principle of“best effort”.They are not required to make promises to the users,or be accountable for them;thus,their costs are lowered further.As a result,the“free”business model is possible for Internet services,which is no doubt a great challenge for the telecom network.Fourthly,the Internet and IPtechnology enrich the communication services and make the service modes more creative.For example,the VoIPcall service can offer something that is not available in traditional call services,upgrading the service capability and expanding callservices.The technological progress of the Internet gives the greatest profound impact on the telecom network because it is revolutionary.

3.2 Telecom Transformation

Telecom networks are suffering from the impact of the Internet that is larger and wider than ever.Surely,this impact promotes the development of telecom technologies.Under the impact,the telecom industry begins to be puzzled at the development direction of telecom technologies,and the income falls sharply.The impact on fixed network telecom operators is greater.Seeing the prosperity of Internet services,especially the colorful information services on the Internet,almost all the telecom operators around the world envy the“big cake”of information services and expect to get a piece of it.They begin to make and implement their transformation plans to become integrated information service providers.

Telecom services often require a whole network design and a standard development process that targets large-scale industrialization. This dramatically complicates and lengthens their research and development.

But how to transform and what to do after transformation are important problems not only for the telecom operators themselves,but also for the long-term development of both the telecom and information industries.In fact,telecom operators and Internet service providers are quite different in many aspects,such as design concept,operation philosophy,personnel and technical reservation.

Telecom operators are not familiar with many fields of information services;therefore,it is infeasible for them to directly apply Internet technologies into their own networks.Undoubtedly,the information industry is very important and is the core of the modern service industry.It is a wise decision for telecom operators to serve the information industry and become an important part of the industry chain.But this does not mean they have to provide the information services themselves,especially the content services.The correct positioning of the telecom industry should be as an important node in the information industry chain where it should play a leading role.

To achieve a successful transformation,telecom operators have to find out their future directions based on their current devices and their strengths and advantages.The strengths of telecom operators are their networks and large-scale services.“How to fully exploit these strengths”is critical to a successful transformation;so,operators should put emphases on it.

Operators should be prudent in their service transformation and differentiate their services from Internet services.

As for the technologies for transformation,the development direction has already been clear.The IPtrend in telecom services shows the future telecom systems should be based on IPtechnology and include bearer network technologies,service network technologies and resource management and control technologies.

As for service operation,the main services of current telecom networks are:resources(including transmission,carrying and service resources)renting and service offering.

Many people think telecom networks will purely become channel resources characterized by heavy bandwidth load and poor profits.In fact,the reason why low profits are made from channelresources is because the quality of network traffic cannot be guaranteed,thus lowering the values of the channels.To get guaranteed network quality,large enterprises have to put lots of money and energies into constructing and maintaining their own IP networks.Therefore,if telecom operators can provide differentiated services and guarantee their networks'quality,the profit-making potentials of their transmission and carrying resources can be explored and a good return can be obtained.

Characterized by a large range of geographic and user coverage and centralized management,telecom networks have the advantage of large-scale services.For example,some government departments,such as public security and transportation,have deployed their video monitoring networks in a large scale.If the telecom operator can provide a public network platform for video monitoring,such repeated deployment can be avoided.In remote education,the school has to provide training services on one hand,and operate the network on the other.Besides,it has to develop users by itself.Consequently,its energies are distracted and its efficiency is lowered.If the network and channels are under the charge of the telecom operator so as to realize division of work between the school and the telecom operator,the efficiency can be improved.As a result,the broadband audio/video services and quality telecom services are still to be further developed by telecom operators.

In summary,the development of telecom services is not simply to charge a fixed monthly rate.Operators should be prudent in their service transformation and differentiate their services from Internet services.They should take advantage of their strengths to realize large-scale services,and put network capacity and IPtechnology into full play,thus allowing the users to really enjoy the benefits of telecom networks.

3.3 Internet vs. Telecom Network

The common points between telecom networks and Internet are that they are of the same origin and use the same technologies.All new telecom services adopt IPtechnologies,and so do telephone service,which is the main service of the telecom industry,and the services carried on the telecom networks(the services of enterprise network).Clearly,the IP trend of telecom services has been determined,which,in turn,determines the use of network technologies.That is to say,telecom networks will be based on IPtechnologies.The application of IP technologies in the Internet has been a success.Although problems have occurred in the development of the Internet,and some of them are even very serious,they will not change the trend of applying IPtechnologies in future information services.Telecom networks and the Internet are of the same technical origin,and both of them are IP-based networks.

The telecom networks differ from the Internet in many aspects.In the design of bearer networks(i.e.,IPnetwork),telecom networks and the Internet are similar.With the development of services,current IPnetworks cannot meet the requirements.As a matter of fact,the IPnetworks hinder the development and expansion of Internet services(e.g.,real-time services).The requirements of telecom networks for bearer networks are almost the same as the Internet's.They both require a secure,trustworthy,controllable and manageable network that can guarantee the quality of service(QoS)and deal with large-scale networking demands.But in the design of service networks,telecom networks and the Internet are quite different,especially the business models adopted in their service networks.

The Internet's service network is basically a parasite(that is to say,a complete separation of service network from bearer network)that it may not pick out a good business model.Moreover,it is developing from a benign parasite into a malign one,endangering the industry chain.The telecom service network is operational service-based,but its current design does not match the bearer network.Besides,its limited openness obstructs service innovation.The current development of the Internet and telecom networks shows their service networks cannot continue the current roads.Both of them should learn from each other and gradually converge on the same direction.Of course,this will not happen at once because there is still a big gap between these two kinds of networks in technologies.

The integration of telecom networks and the Internet is possible and has certain bases.Their bearer networks will be eventually integrated as the same technologies are used and the requirements for them are the same.As to their service networks,they have their own advantages and disadvantages in design concept and technical development.In fact,they are learning from each other.Both are based on IPtechnologies,and their services overlap.Therefore,the convergence of the service networks is also inevitable.Certainly,telecom networks will not be simply integrated into the Internet,or vice versa.They will converge into an IP-based next generation network.At present,the major telecom operators adopt dual-network frame(two overlapped networks),which is a good evidence of this integration trend.

4 Technology Development in Next Generation Network

The transformation of telecom industry requires next generation network,and it is only after the next generation network is developed that the telecom industry can be successfully transformed.The next generation network will be the telecom network using data packet technology as its core technology.It covers a wide range:transmission network,bearer network and service network.With respect to the transmission network,which is basically based on TDM technology currently,it will be based on data packet technology in the future.As to the bearer network,not all the current telecom bearer networks are packet technology-based,and a proper packet-based network has not been found for carrying telecom services.Although such protocols as X.25,F.Rand Asynchronous Transfer Mode(ATM)were once proposed,they did not succeed.Now,the bearer network are using IP technology,but lots of problems have been found and not been solved.In terms of the service network,its design concepts is still not mature,causing the related technologies and standards to be diversified.The development direction of the service network cannot be determined yet,which hinders the development of the telecom industry.Many operators do not pay the equipment,which,in turn,worries the equipment manufacturers.The development direction of the service network is still a headache.Other aspects closely related to next generation network include user management and service management,which are critical to future networks;security,where more persons are engaged,but more problems are found;and channel coding and signal source coding,which are related to transformation to packet technology.

The next generation network will be the telecom network using data packet technology as its core technology.

The old voice coding is fixed and long.With packet switching technology,the channel coding is of variable length.

5 Conclusions

The appearance of the Internet has brought great impact on telecommunications networks.It has broken the monopoly of the telecom industry in telecom services and promoted the development of technologies.Characterized by continuous innovation and aggressiveness,Internet services guarantee their dominating position in broadband networks,and put the telecom industry in a quite passive position.The telecom industry is still looking for new development direction and breakthroughs in technology in order to regain its leading position.

Both telecom networks and the Internet are at the crossroads.Their future should be the next generation network,which willbe the main body of future national information infrastructure.The essential features of the next generation network should be secure and trustworthy enough to safeguard users'rights,national security and social stability;it should be scalable enough to allow sustainable development;it should be compatible with current main technologies,co-exist with them and allow their graceful evolution;and it should provide a network platform for everybody to innovate.