Future Trends in Networking

Getting connected is the basis for all other technologies. Today, the Internet offers the fastest and easiest information access ever, with services such as online banking, shopping, stock trading, news postings, email, and more. Businesses are capitalizing on the Internet with e-commerce opportunities, while the home networking market consumes those services through high-speed cable modem and DSL connections shared over Ethernet networks. With everyone exchanging data almost instantly, it's networking that keeps everyone connected.

Networking links you to friends, family, coworkers, and virtually anyone in the world with PC access. It even connects you to the ultimate of all networks, the Internet, where networks of all sizes connect to form a global information system. As more users discover online resources and new applications are developed, networking must become more efficient to support its masses of users.

Innovations of all kinds are being proposed to enhance networking applications, and sharing Internet connections through networks is quickly becoming one of the key advantages of networking. On the computing level, Gigabit Ethernet will boost network speeds up to 1000Mbps, and Network-Attached Storage (NAS) and Storage-Area Network (SAN) media will expand, centralize and manage data storage. Powerline networking transfers data over your electrical wiring, and wireless hardware promises to rid us of cabling altogether.

In a broader outlook, all these factors drive a strong market demand for a universal system of communications connecting more than just PCs. New paths for data transfer are being forged to achieve interoperability among PCs, TVs, cellular phones, PDAs, cameras and other multimedia devices. Bluetooth is just one of the exciting developments in wireless technology, bridging data lines between PCs, cellular phones and other small electronic devices using short-range radio wave transmission. As data transfer finds new paths and wireless technology frees it from physical lines, a complete package for voice, data, and entertainment convergence is inevitable.

In fact, the market already affirms convergence as the future of networking. Network data can now travel over all types of cabling, including Ethernet cable, fiber optic cable, phone lines, and power lines. Hybrid devices are combining multiple technologies and hardware functions into a single multi-tasking device, such as set-top boxes for merging TV and PC data and residential gateways for handling a home network's security and high-speed Internet connections. To take it one step further, those gateways are expected to evolve into a single device, controlling home security on top of network security, as well as networking household appliances like refrigerators and central air conditioning.

The next generation of Internet users have much to anticipate. Information will flow more freely as voice, video, and data merge to travel over the same pathways. The Internet itself will be revamped with IPv6, or Internet Protocol Version 6, increasing the number of IP addresses and implementing IPSec (Internet Protocol security) to enhance security on the Internet and support the development of VPNs, or Virtual Private Networks. IP telephony, or Voice Over IP (VoIP) will allow two-way audio transmission, meaning free or low-cost long-distance phone conversations via the Internet, as well as faster downloading of music and video files as well.

As the development of gateways suggest, the future will bring us a system of connected devices that all share and process the same digital data. Each day builds new connections, and networking will be the cohesive force that unifies these connections into a completely integrated reality.