The Internet is poised on the brink of a broadband revolution, according to Vinton Cerf - the founding father of the TCP/IP protocol upon which the Internet is built.

Speaking at last week's Alcatel Business Networking Forum in Paris, Cerf, now senior vice president at MCI WorldCom, stated that use of dense wave division multiplexing (DWDM) by carriers and widespread adoption of xDSL and cable modems will shortly drive the final nail in the narrowband coffin.

"Today I feel like I need a Batman belt to deal with all the pagers, cellphones and PDAs you need to access the Internet," said Cerf. "But today's switched circuit networks, which tie up switches when packets are sent, are the most stupid way of getting data through. We will be online all the time soon, when IPv6 allows everyone to have a permanent Internet address."

Cerf pointed to Nasa's project which aims to set up an interplanetary Internet to illustrate the way IP will boldly go where no technology has gone before. However, he also came down to earth and predicted that Microsoft's virtual software monopoly was challenged by the Internet.

"It is not clear to me that current operating system software is up to the job," he said. "We do not need everything Windows. I see something other than Microsoft as the product engines. Will Microsoft go away? No, It has repeatedly shown itself adapting to the Internet. But we will also see many small codes, such as Java, moving up."

For more stories see 17 February issue of Network News