More Internets From Which To Choose

NewNet. Internet2. NLR. Plus the tired old workhorse the World Wide Web. Soon, you'll be hopping from one ultra-fast network to another the way you currently jump from website to website.

Internet2, a consortium of primarily academically-rooted interests, has announced that they're dumping plans to build a next-gen interweb with Qwest in favor of a new fiber-optic information highway to be built by Level3 Communications. Current plans call for a launch of some kind in 2008. NewNet will also facilitate the construction of ad-hoc subnetworks leveraging not just fat pipes but also better data protocols that will enable true and virtual networking of a speed and facility not yet seen.

This, of course, is a different bunch of players with a different interweb, and should not be confused with National LambdaRail, which is being built by a consortium of primarily research-driven interests. Talks between the two consortia to explore their collaborative development of one meganet fell apart last Spring. So they're taking their toys and each will build their own. Desolee, dudes. So sorry.

Ah, the halcyon days of the old ARPANET. Remember when "surfing" meant creative use of the asterisk key in a futile attempt to avoid the wrath of the *P Police? We've come a long way, baby! (Soon we'll be able to get the "BEST DEALS ON V1agr4 and 4mb13n" in nanoseconds. Compared to the milliseconds it takes now.)

Cool, huh?