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1.  High Performance Communications

 High performance communications activities are a highly productive  HPCC Program area.  During thepast year we have seen continued  explosive growth in the use of high performance communications for information access, research at the frontiers of science, and  commercial endeavors.  High performancecommunication activities  include continued research and development in internetworking  technologiesto support these new communities and applications,  research into network systems operating at abillion bits per second  and faster, wireless technologies, integrating computing and  communicationacross wide areas, and enhanced Internet  connectivity. 
**Internetworking R&D**
The Internet was created by ARPA, and that agency, other HPCC  agencies, and industry and academiahave contributed to its  evolution and phenomenal growth (details about itsevolution are  given below).  As new communities of education, commercial,  public sector, andindividual users join the Internet, fundamental  changes must be made to support increased use, newapplications  such as video and imagery, service quality, security, and new modes  of communication. Internetworking R&D supports these activities  across the HPCC Program. 
Work at ARPA, NSF, and other HPCC agencies in protocols is directed  at ensuring that different typesof networks continue working  together as a cohesive system.  New services, such as multicast and guaranteed service quality, are being created, evaluated, and  introduced.  Research into new routingand scaling techniques for  extremely large networks anticipates an Internet that interconnects millions of sub-networks and billions of end users across an  increasingly diverse set of media. Network security from the  perspectives of protecting the network and protecting users is being incorporated into the fundamental operating principles. 
- In FY 1995 ARPA will demonstrate network bandwidth, delay, and service reservation guarantees tosupport new services, such as video, imagery, collaborative work, and interactive data services.    Inconjunction with other DOD agencies, ARPA will test and evaluate SONET and ATM  (described below)  encryption technologies at 155 Mb/s (megabits per second or millionsof bits per second).  Also in FY 1995, next generation multicast-based services with improved ease ofuse will be demonstrated.  In FY 1995 NSF plans to support integrative research, including experimental projects, thatspans computer architecture, operating systems, compilers, I/O systems, network interfaces, andnetworks.  The objective is to reduce latency and increase performance of the network integratedcomputing system. 
In FY 1995 DOE will support R&D and deployment to integrate scalable I/O with network R&D. 

***The Evolution of the Internet*
 The Internet began in the late 1960s with the  development of  ARPANET.  ARPANET provided a limitednumber of researchers with  shared, interactive communications between computing systems at  differentlocations and developed key innovative technologies on  which the Internet still depends.  Some ofthese include: 
- "Packet switching" in which a message is divided into packets that     are transmitted to theirdestination and reassembled -- rather than     using a dedicated circuit as in the telephone system or"store and     forward" that is used in the telegraph system  A distributed rather than a centralized network -- even when some     nodes fail, the remainingnetwork continues to function, although     perhaps at reduced capability 
Adaptivity -- packets can be transmitted to the same destination     over different parts of thenetwork based on current network load     and connectivity 
The Transmission Control Protocol (TCP) and the Internet Protocol     (IP) were developed in the1970s and early 1980s under ARPA     sponsorship to enable different networks to interoperate.  TCP/IP    made it possible for ARPANET, the ARPA packet radio network, and     the packet satellite network,each with different packet sizes and     network transmission speeds, to interoperate. 
While initially an experimental system, the need for a stable  network emerged as the user communitygrew.  MILNET was split  from the ARPANET for use by Department of Defense users.  Federal  agenciesestablished networks to support their R&D communities:  NSF created NSFNET for the university researchcommunity, NASA  built the NASA Science Internet (NSI), and DOE created the Energy  Sciences Network(ESnet).  These networks and an ever growing  profusion of local area networks and regional networksform the  HPCC component of the Internet, a "network of networks," and  demonstrate the fundamentalstrength of new networking  technologies created in the early ARPANET. 
The recent phenomenal growth of the Internet beyond the HPCC  community is the result of educational,public service, private  sector, and personal investment.  Today there are more than 27,000  networksin the U.S., an increase of 350 percent over that reported  on these pages a year ago.  Non-U.S.networks number more than  21,000, an increase of 225 percent.  More than 1,500 U.S. colleges  anduniversities, 1,500 high schools and 1,700 elementary schools in  the U.S. have full Internetconnectivity. 
The HPCC Program has directly stimulated the emergence of a  vigorous and highly competitive privatesector industry in Internet  hardware, software, and connectivity in which the U.S. is a world leader. 
**Gigabit-Speed Networking R&D**
A major HPCC activity is the support of five gigabit testbeds jointly  funded by ARPA and NSF withsupport from DOE through their  national laboratories, and a sixth testbed funded by ARPA.  Nine Federal agencies, thirteen telecommunications carriers, twelve  universities, eight corporations, andtwo state supercomputer  centers participate in these six testbeds that connect 24 sites.  Transmission equipment and fiber optic cabling is provided by the  carriers and industry at no cost tothe Federal government.  An  important success of the gigabit networking project is the high  level ofcooperation among the academic, industrial, and  governmental participants leading to new capabilitiesin the science  community, new markets for the industrial community, and new  visions for highperformance communications. 
http://WWW.CNRI.Reston.VA.US:4000/public/gigabit.html**