Start-ups lead the way

Some of the most exciting new technologies are being developed in the labs of innovative start-ups.

Sycamore Networks, Inc. is offering the promise of inexpensive, virtually unlimited bandwidth through optical switching. Desh Deshpande, Sycamore's founder and chairman, predicts that within a few years, fully meshed, packet-switched, optical networks will be widely available and easy to provision. "You'll see OC-48 (2.5G bit/sec) services become like the T-1s of the '90s.''

For a fully functional network, you need hardware, software and end-user devices that can take advantage of that type of bandwidth.

Juniper Networks, Inc. is developing powerful routers designed to carry converged voice, data and video. "Today we are shipping boxes that can handle one million voice calls per second - and if that is the reality today, then the reality in 10 years is devices with 100 times that capacity,'' says company spokesman Joe Furgerson.

He adds, "Voice calls will be an interesting legacy application - you really will be able to click and shoot and see people, and voice mail will be as much for video clips as voice, or even picking up applications and files.''

Varad Srinivasan, chief technology officer at NetLogic Microsystems, Inc., one of the new breed of fabless semiconductor companies that design specialized processors, predicts that some devices will retain the same general form but will become smarter - a household microwave containing a chip with an IP address that allows it to be controlled remotely over a network. And other devices - cellular phones, pagers, personal digital assistants - will merge into one.

"Bandwidth will be less of an issue,'' Srinivasan says. "You will be able to turn the heat on and off from work because you will have a mini-router in your house. Just like we have electric motors in everything, the routers and hubs we see in offices today will be in houses, and they are all going to be talking.''

Those new household and office routers will have to have superior authentication and encryption capabilities if people are going to trust them.

"The challenge will be making sure that you connect in a way that nobody else can listen,'' says Bruno Couillard, CTO at Chrysalis-ITS, Inc.

His company is developing a variety of security products, including encrypted PC tokens that work with digital certificate-enabled desktops.

With that much dependence upon the network, performance becomes even more critical. Enter the self-curing network, smart enough to figure out it has a problem and smart enough to fix it.

Patrick Taylor, vice president of strategic marketing at Internet Security Systems, Inc. (ISS), says his company is focusing on just such technology.

Taylor says ISS has products today that gather information about vulnerable spots in a network, analyze threats and help network managers prioritize problems.

"Today, I can see an attack and I can send a message that tells a firewall to shut down," Taylor says. "In the future I will have to figure out more based on the whole idea of electronic commerce and virtual corporations. The servers at the heart will always be there, but the boundaries will be nonexistent.''

His prediction is that networks will be equipped with sensors that will interact with smart programs to enable the network to dynamically make decisions and change configurations.

Jacobs is a freelance writer living in Dover, N.H. She can be reached at ajacobs777@aol.com.