The Internet Launches Into Space

Now that the Internet has dominated Earth, it is moving out into space. It’s a little early to talk about Google ET browsers, but there are moves afoot to take the Internet out there into the vast unknown.

Well, these initial efforts are really about using Internet technologies within the Earth orbits we’re already so familiar with. Someday, though, we may be establishing planet codes and galaxy codes to complement today’s country codes. Let’s see what the first baby steps are all about.

The first endeavor is by Cisco to establish routers in orbit. In fact, the defense department has an entire program known as IRIS or Internet Routing In Space. The idea is to route IP packets between satellites without first having to beam them to Earth. Because of the long distances involved in any transmissions to and from space, it make sense to avoid the round trip to Earth whenever possible. This will also have the advantage of making space networks more autonomous and not subject to interruptions caused by problems on the ground.

The military gets first crack at using the prototype router aboard the Intelsat IS-14 satellite that was launched last year. After an exclusive 3 month DOD test program, the router will be turned over to Cisco for a year long period of commercial tests. After that, who knows? If things work out, there may be all sorts of routers buzzing overhead in the coming years. Some will be used to provide wireless broadband services to Earthlings. Others will be up to who knows what in the deep dark void.

On another front, Twitter has gone into orbit on the International Space Station. Last week, astronaut T. J. Creamer sent the first tweet from space. His first words? “Hello Twitterverse!”

Actually, the astronauts have been able to use email for some time. But this is the first availability of Twitter, the embodiment of Web 2.0, at the Space Station. Perhaps if NASA started monetizing the station as a reality show, they might be able to generate the funding that Congress is so stingy with. They need to launch something called the “Big Brother Module” and start doing kinky things in zero-g. That might be just the ticket to recovering public interest in the space program.

How about the Moon and Mars? It’s technically feasible to have live webcams on those rovers. Now, add the ability of people on Earth to issue rover commands and you’d have a sure-fire killer app. Of course, the fun would be over just as soon as some smart aleck send one of the vehicles over a cliff. Maybe you could have them draw your name in the Martian soil or something equally benign.

We’re just getting started exploring the final frontier that is outer space. Clearly, the Internet will have a big role in “space exploration, the home game.” Scientists may be interested in downloading all sorts of arcane data from spacecraft. The rest of us will just want to drive rovers, spy on astronauts, and tweet with ETs.

Cisco's New Terabit Monster Router

Cisco's new edge router, the ASR 9000, is upping the ante on network bandwidth. This beast will deliver 6.4 Tbps when fully loaded at 400 Gbps per slot. Who needs a router this powerful? Probably not your mom and pop retail store. But they might be using services downstream from a carrier who has installed an ASR 9000. Why the need for even more speed? One word: Video.

Video not only killed the radio star, it's pretty much killing service providers too. The Internet was conceived and built in an era when text was king. As technology and applications evolved, it managed to scale up with the move to more visual Web pages. But video is taxing the ability of service providers to add bandwidth as fast as users glomp onto more and more video content. It's YouTube, certainly. But it's also Web pages that embed video reports instead of text, and TV producers that see the Internet as another medium for distributing their programs.

So bad has it gotten, that major ISPs have taken to impose download limits on what was once unlimited broadband. They're easing into this by setting the cutoff point high enough so that only rabid video downloaders are likely to get kicked off the network. But today's rabid downloaders are merely early adopters of the way we'll all want our content delivered eventually. It's going to be high definition large screen full length video at will. Once this genie gets completely out of the bottle, satellite and cable are going to have to scramble to avoid becoming as limited as over-the-air TV channels when it comes to program delivery. If we had the set top boxes, programming guides and motivated content producers today, the Internet would be brought to its knees overnight.

That's what Cisco is trying to address with the ASR 9000. What might appear to be overkill for many edge router applications is going to be a normal requirement sooner than we think. In fact, the ASR 9000 is targeted at video service providers, such as cable companies, and also at mobile providers. These include cell phone companies that are starting to push mobile video and likely WiMAX operators who will be dealing with video-craving users sooner than they may think.

The other trend that Cisco is positioning for is the move from legacy time division network technology to Ethernet and MPLS. The ASR9000 has built-in capabilities for IPoDWDM or IP over Dense Wavelength Division Multiplexing as a next-generation network core technology.

You don't really need Terabit transport requirements to take advantage of Ethernet and MPLS in your business. Metro Ethernet offers cost savings over traditional DS3 bandwidth and can often be provisioned over copper pair rather than fiber optic cable for bandwidths below 50 Mbps. MPLS networks are fast becoming the preferred method to interconnect multiple business locations.

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