But from all we have just seen, the growth in data communications may be just beginning. If computers begin communicating between themselves for internally generated purposes it is possible that this traffic will do to current data traffic what it is doing today to voice traffic. Today nearly all computer data communications results from the direct action of a human operator request a web page, copy a file, send an email, etc. The next wave of computer generated and received and acted upon messages will likely require new thinking again. But we may find that the Protocol of the network must change as well to allow the communications to occur in ways that are native for the sender and receiver.
Computers don t really operate in terms of IP packets, fibre channel frames, etc.
They deal in terms of various organization of memory cache lines, virtual memory pages. The next generation of networks will likely be dominated not only by bandwidth but also by communications originated by computers, received and acted upon by computers as a part of their normal operation. The information will be sent and received in ways that are native to that population and therefore in ways that are most optimal for that intelligent entity.