GENI: A sneak peek at what's after the Internet?

A new National Science Foundation (NSF) effort to foster next-generation network research will get a public hearing next week in Arlington, Va.

The "town hall meeting" on March 10 will focus on the "Global Environment for Networking Innovations" (GENI), which has been described by some as a sort of future Internet. The NSF calls it "a shared, global facility designed to catalyze research on network architectures, services and applications" (see the NSF’s FAQ and a recently released, 125-page PDF "snapshot" of the envisioned facility).

Key to the effort is accelerating the transition of research into products and services. Technologies of interest include built-in security, mobility, sensor networks, management and usability. The NSF anticipates that GENI would work in conjunction with research facilities around the globe to test new applications and distributed network architectures.

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A new National Science Foundation (NSF) effort to foster next-generation network research will get a public hearing next week in Arlington, Va.

The "town hall meeting" on March 10 will focus on the "Global Environment for Networking Innovations" (GENI), which has been described by some as a sort of future Internet. The NSF calls it "a shared, global facility designed to catalyze research on network architectures, services and applications" (see the NSF’s FAQ and a recently released, 125-page PDF "snapshot" of the envisioned facility).

Key to the effort is accelerating the transition of research into products and services. Technologies of interest include built-in security, mobility, sensor networks, management and usability. The NSF anticipates that GENI would work in conjunction with research facilities around the globe to test new applications and distributed network architectures.

The town meeting will be used to gather input from the broad research community on where GENI should focus. GENI is still surrounded by lots of questions, including how it will be funded.

GENI has also become part of a broader discussion about where networks are headed, as different parties debate the merits of such architectures as IP Multimedia Subsystem.

The town meeting, being coordinated by the Computing Research Association, takes place from 9:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. at the Hyatt Arlington. It costs $75 to register.