Internet in 2034

To think about the future of the Internet, let’s have a look at the past. To predict the future 20 years from now, let’s get an idea how much we have advanced in the last 20 years. So, how was the internet really in 1994? Well in the 90s the internet was becoming more and more popular; it was having a revolutionary impact on means of communication with advent of electronic mail, instant messaging, forums, blogs and social networking. All these things are still pretty much there, however they have now become a basic necessity in everyday personal and professional life. Something which was a fantast or a novelty 20 years back has now become an integrated part of our lives.

Another major difference in the last 20 years has been the number of devices connected to the internet. Currently we have over 20 billion devices connected to the internet, which is more than 3 times the population of the whole world. This is an extra-ordinary change, and it clearly showcases the impact Internet has had on our daily lives. Also, the fact that these devices talk to each other and are super smart, has brought in a revolution with regards to convergence.

So going by all the above, it is really difficult to predict how Internet would be 20 years from now, no one would have guessed 20 years back that we would be relying and using the internet so heavily today. However, here’s my 2 cents.

First thing I believe that might happen is division of networks. Currently we have only a WWW, which is common and everyone uses it. I believe slowly we would have multiple closely coupled and independent array of networks. For eg. We would have self driving cars, so there would be an independent network infrastructure dedicated just for that particular domain. This would have to happen because going by the numbers and the exponential increase we are having currently, it would be almost impossible to have one global network which would encompass everything.

Another major revolution I see is in the medical industry and its influence on wearable devices. We already have some wearable devices in the form of Google Glass, Smart Watches, we also have a Smart Band coming up. I believe in the future, the complete health of the human body would be monitored via a wearable device, it could be as simple as a watch or a wrist band, it would be connected to the health systems web and off course it would be smart enough to ensure I am in the peak of my health all the time.

We may also see shift in the basic architecture of how the internet is accessed and used. We already ran out of IPv4 addresses last year and we are now using IPv6 addresses to accommodate the staggering number of devices connected to the internet. We also see new and new concepts like Cloud Computing, Big Data Analytics, etc coming up. All this and more could easily change the fundamental architecture of the internet in the future.

I might as well start thinking of what we saw in fiction movies like Minority Report and Robot, and there is a fair chance that reality could be that in 20 years. Science, Technology and Internet are advancing and tremendous rate, I use a Nexus 5 smart phone, and I receive OS update and application updates very frequently. Also with regards to hardware, we have 3GB of RAM now available in smart phones, with octo core processors, something we could have never imagined, same goes with the internet, how and where it would lead us is difficult to predict!

*I had submitted this essay as part of the Coursera IHTS course of University of Michigan. I am publishing this now as grades are declared. Please do not copy for any future sessions of this course.