Information Superhighway: An Overview of Technology Challenges
Released: 1995-01-23T00:00:00

Letter

Introduction

A global technological upheaval, fueled by rapid advances in information processing, storage, switching, and transmission technologies, is beginning to blur the lines between computing, telephony, television, and publishing. This convergence is creating a new breed of information service industry, and permitting the development of the much discussed National Information Infrastructure (NII), commonly known as the information superhighway. The administration envisions the superhighway as a seamless web of communications networks, computers, databases, and consumer electronics—built, owned, and operated principally by the private sector—that will put vast amounts of information at users’ fingertips. It believes that the superhighway, if freed from the constraints imposed by rigid regulatory regimes, will fundamentally change the way we work, learn, shop, communicate, entertain ourselves, and get health care and public services.

Despite the dramatic advances in technology and the changes sweeping the communications industry, the superhighway’s development is expected to be slow and arduous. As such, its development should not be viewed as a cliff that is suddenly confronted, but rather an increasingly steep slope that society has been climbing since the early communications networks were established. A national and global information infrastructure, which will serve as the foundation for the superhighway, already exists. Telephones, televisions, radios, computers, and fax machines—interconnected through a complex web of fiber optics, wires, cables, satellites, and other communications technologies—are used every day to receive, store, process, display, and transmit data, text, voice, sound, and images in homes and businesses throughout the world. However, the information superhighway is expected to offer much more than separate telephone, data, or video services; it is expected to integrate these services into an advanced high-speed, interactive, broadband, digital communications system.

Some of the advanced capabilities and services envisioned for the superhighway are beginning to be provided—albeit at a relatively high cost and at low transmission speeds—by the existing information infrastructure. For example, the Internet—a global metanetwork, or “network of networks,” linking over 59,000 networks, 2.2 million computer systems, and over 15 million users in 92 countries—provides many of the services envisioned for the information superhighway. Similarly, a growing number of on-line services, such as CompuServe, America Online, and Prodigy, provide their subscribers with a rich array of information services. Finally, hundreds of communities across America are served by electronic bulletin boards dispensing information to hundreds of thousands of users.

The administration, believing that the technologies to create, manipulate, manage, and use information are of strategic importance to the United States, has formed a multiagency group—the Information Infrastructure Task Force (IITF)—to articulate a vision for the information superhighway and to guide its development. The task force, chaired by the Secretary of Commerce, is responsible for addressing a wide range of regulatory and technical issues related to the information superhighway and for the coordination of existing federal efforts in the communications area. The task force is examining, through its committees and working groups, a wide range of technical issues relevant to the development and growth of the information superhighway. A more detailed description of the IITF structure and its activities is presented in appendix I.

The Grand Vision of the Information Superhighway

While industry is beginning to build the information superhighway, little is known about how the superhighway will be structured and what services it will provide. Nevertheless, a common vision of its capabilities is beginning to form among policymakers and public interest groups. First, there is an emerging agreement that the superhighway should be structured as a metanetwork that will seamlessly link thousands of broadband digital networks. Second, it should allow a two-way flow of information, with users being able to both receive and transmit large volumes of digital information. Third, it should be open, ensuring equal access for service and network providers. Finally, it should ensure the security and privacy of databases and users’ communications, and provide a high degree of interoperability and reliability.

Achieving the grand vision will depend largely on how successfully industry integrates advanced technologies and capabilities into the various layers of the information superhighway. To better understand the integration of advanced telecommunication technologies into the existing communication infrastructure, we developed a conceptual model of the information superhighway, as shown in figure 1.1.

The model presents the following five critical layers—management, applications, information, networks, and transport—linked with pervasive security, interoperability, and reliability requirements: the transport layer consists of optical fibers, coaxial cable, copper wire, switches, routers, satellites, and transmitters the networks layer consists of thousands of logical networks superimposed on the transport layer the information layer includes databases and electronic libraries containing text, images, and video the applications layer contains software and consumer electronics needed to access the superhighway’s information and services the management layer consists of operations and administrative centers, emergency response teams, and security services.

Today’s Networks Provide the Foundation for the Superhighway

With a few exceptions, such as the recently proposed global satellite networks, most experts anticipate that the superhighway will be built on the foundation of the existing communications infrastructure. Over the years, this infrastructure has evolved into three separate, and frequently incompatible, communications networks. These are the wire-based voice and data telephone networks, the cable-based video networks, and the wireless voice, data, and video networks.

The wire-based voice and data telephone networks are part of the global telephone network. The voice networks provide ubiquitous, highly interoperable, high-speed, and flexible telephone service to millions of users. The data networks provide high-speed digital data communications services. The cable-based video networks rely on various approaches to broadcast a one-way broadband video signal to individual subscribers. Finally, the wireless networks use a wide range of analog and digital radio technologies to deliver voice, data, and video services.

The principal shortcoming of the existing communications infrastructure is its inability to provide integrated voice, data, and video services. Over the years, the voice and data networks have evolved separately, with voice networks relying on circuit switching while data networks largely using packet switching techniques. Thus, a business user requiring voice, data, and videoconferencing services may have to use three separate networks—a voice network, a data network, and a videoconferencing network. The emergence of multimedia applications and the high bandwidth applications in health care, industry, education, and business are beginning to require a network infrastructure capable of supporting multiple types of information.

The basic architecture of the three types of networks is shown in figure 1.2 (see appendix II for an overview of each of these networks).

The communications industry is beginning to introduce several new and innovative technologies that could enable the superhighway’s developers to achieve the administration’s vision of the information superhighway. These technologies include narrowband Integrated Services Digital Network (ISDN), advanced signaling and intelligent networks, broadband ISDN (B-ISDN), personal communications networks, and broadband in the local loop.

These technologies, described in more detail in appendix III, will help provide many of the advanced services and capabilities of the information superhighway. The development of the superhighway will also require the expenditure of tens of billions of dollars to build the local broadband “on-ramps” connecting residential, institutional, and business users with the evolving superhighway. Further, its users are expected to be offered viable services and information products beyond the much touted 500 channels of high-definition television.

Objective, Scope, and Methodology

In light of the strategic importance of the information superhighway, we identified the socioeconomic, regulatory, and technical issues and challenges associated with the development of the information superhighway. Our previous report addressed all three areas. Our objective in this report is to address in more detail the key technical issues: security and privacy, interoperability, and network reliability.

To accomplish our objective, we surveyed an extensive body of technical literature and industry journals, searched and reviewed related documents from Internet networks, and reviewed postings to various Internet news groups with interest in telecommunications and information security issues. To obtain the views of federal officials on the technical challenges related to the development of the information superhighway, we met with representatives from the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), the National Telecommunications and Information Administration, the Information Infrastructure Task Force (IITF), the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), the National Science Foundation, the Department of Defense (DOD), the Advanced Research Projects Agency (ARPA), and the National Security Agency (NSA). We also met with representatives of the telephone, cable, and communication industry to obtain their views on technical issues related to the superhighway.

We conducted our work in Washington, D.C., and vicinity between September 1993 and October 1994, in accordance with generally accepted government auditing standards. In addition, we discussed the contents of this report with representatives of the National Telecommunications and Information Administration, IITF, FCC, NIST, DOD, ARPA, and NSA, and have incorporated their comments where appropriate.

Ensuring Security and Privacy Will Pose a Major Challenge

Much of the information that will be on the superhighway, including health care records, business documents, engineering drawings, purchase orders, or credit card transactions, will be proprietary or privacy sensitive and must be protected. As it evolves, the superhighway will become an increasingly tempting target for intruders with the technical expertise and resources to cause great harm, including insiders, hackers, foreign governments conducting political and military intelligence operations, domestic and foreign enterprises engaged in industrial espionage, and terrorist groups seeking to disrupt our society or cripple our economy.Unauthorized disclosure, theft, modification, or malicious destruction of such information could bankrupt a business, interrupt vital public service, or destroy lives.

Information security plays a key role in protecting computer systems, networks, and information—including voice, fax, and data communications—from harm, disclosure, or loss. Privacy depends heavily on security. In essence, there is little or no privacy protection afforded by poorly secured information systems and networks. While privacy-enhancing legislation, regulations, and management practices play an important role in reducing the threat to individual privacy, it is security technology that will provide many of the safeguards.

Significant effort will be needed to define, develop, test, and implement measures to overcome the security challenge posed by the increasing complexity, interconnectivity, and the sheer size of the evolving superhighway. These measures include identifying the superhighway’s security and privacy requirements and developing tools and techniques to satisfy the requirements.

The federal government, because of its extensive experience and expertise in developing secure networks, is addressing selected aspects of security and privacy. However, critics of federal involvement argue that the current federal strategy represents a danger to civil liberties and that individuals should be free to choose the technical means for achieving information security. As a result, the challenge will be establishing a reasonable level of consensus among the major players—the government, the computer and communications industry, the business community, and civil liberty groups—on how to ensure information security and privacy on the information superhighway.

Networks and Computer Systems Are Increasingly Vulnerable to Attacks

The vulnerability of interconnected computer systems is periodically highlighted by attacks on the thousands of computer systems connected to the Internet. These attacks provide an important lesson. The Internet—the world’s largest network of networks—has many of the same attributes that will eventually be found in the information superhighway. The information superhighway may not only share similar vulnerabilities, but it may face similar, albeit greatly magnified, threats.

Two major security incidents affecting the Internet illustrate the risk to the evolving information infrastructure. On November 8, 1988, thousands of computers connected to the Internet were attacked by a worm. While the worm did not damage or compromise data, it did deny service to thousands of users working at the nation’s major research centers. We found that a number of vulnerabilities facilitated this attack, including the lack of a central focal point to address Internet-wide security problems; security weaknesses at host computer sites; and problems in developing, distributing, and installing software patches to operating system software. In response to this incident, the Advanced Research Projects Agency established a Computer Emergency Response Team to assist the Internet community in responding to attacks. Several federal agencies and private-sector organizations also established additional computer emergency response teams coordinated by NIST.

Five years later, in January 1994, intruders again exploited similar weaknesses. This time, the attack was more serious. The intruders gained access to a number of hosts (computer systems) linked to the Internet. The intruders then installed software that captured user names, passwords, and hosts’ addresses for Internet traffic terminating at, or passing through, the attacked sites. In addition, they installed two Trojan horse programs, one program to provide back-door access for the intruders to retrieve the captured passwords, and a second program to disguise the network monitoring process. With this information, the intruders could access 100,000 Internet accounts. The Department of Defense reported that the attacks compromised a major portion of the international commercial networks as well as major portions of the unclassified Defense information infrastructure. Defense functions affected by the attacks included ballistic weapons research, ocean surveillance, and the military health care systems.

Security Measures Are Critical to Minimizing Risk

Reducing the frequency and damage of attacks against the national networks will require a significant effort to provide the tools and resources necessary for the development and deployment of infrastructure-wide security services. These services include identification and authentication—the ability to verify a user’s identity and a message’s authenticity, access control and authorization—the protection of information from confidentiality—the protection of information from unauthorized disclosure, integrity—the protection of information from unauthorized modification or accidental loss, nonrepudiation—the ability to prevent senders from denying they have sent messages and receivers from denying they have received messages, and availability—the ability to prevent denial of service, that is, to ensure that service to authorized users is not disrupted.

Cryptography will play a key role in the development of five of the six security services for the information superhighway. It helps, through password encryption, to improve identification and access control; it protects confidentiality and data integrity by encrypting the data; and finally, it improves, through encrypted electronic signature and related means, nonrepudiation services.

Two basic types of cryptographic systems exist: secret key systems (also called symmetric systems) and public key systems (also called asymmetric systems). In secret key cryptography, two or more parties use the same key to encrypt and decrypt data. As the name implies, secret key cryptography relies on keeping the key secret. If this key is compromised, the security offered by cryptography is eliminated. The best known secret key algorithm is the Data Encryption Standard. It is currently the most widely accepted, publicly available symmetric cryptographic algorithm. Secret key systems also require that a secure communications channel be established for the delivery of the secret key from the sender to receiver. Such a secure, nonelectronic communications channel for the distribution of secret keys is costly to establish and maintain.

Unlike secret key cryptography, which employs a single key shared by two or more parties, public key cryptography uses a pair of matched keys for each party. One of these keys is public and the other private. The public key is made known to other parties—mainly through electronic directories—while the private key must be kept confidential. Thus, under the public key system, there is no need to establish a secure channel to distribute keys. The sender encrypts the message with the recipient’s freely disclosed, unique public key. The recipient, in turn, uses her unique private key to decrypt the message.

Public key cryptography also enables the user to produce an electronic signature. The user encrypts the signature using the private key, which, when decrypted with the public key, provides verification that the message originated from that user. The best known public key algorithm is the Rivest-Shamir-Adelman algorithm. The Pretty Good Privacy software, which implements the Rivest-Shamir-Adelman algorithm, is probably one of the best known public key cryptographic systems. Figure 2.1 highlights the principal features of the secret and public key cryptographic systems.

A host of related security technologies, including computer memory cards, will also play an important role in securing the information superhighway. Computer memory technology uses a credit-card-size electronic module to store digital information that can be recognized by a network or a host system. Figure 2.2 shows a computer memory card—the Tessera Crypto Card—developed by the National Security Agency. The Tessera Crypto Card is a small, portable cryptographic module that provides high-speed authentication and encryption services.

Federal Role in Security and Privacy Is Subject to Debate

Federal involvement in communication security is fueling a debate over the federal role in regulating the development and use of encryption and communications technologies. Critics of federal involvement, such as the Electronic Frontier Foundation—a public interest organization focused on protecting civil liberties in digital environments—believe that government control of encryption technologies and their implementation represents a danger to civil liberties, and that individuals should be free to choose the technical means for meeting their security requirements. Others, including NIST and Defense officials, maintain that the federal government’s participation and guidance in securing the information superhighway may be needed for several reasons. First, the government is a major consumer of telecommunications services and has unique national security and law enforcement needs that must be addressed. Second, the government, and particularly the Department of Defense, has considerable experience in the areas of computer and communications security. Defense, the developer and operator of the world’s largest secure communications network, could provide expertise needed to help develop the superhighway’s security architecture. The need for such an architecture was underscored by a recent study which noted that it is “imperative to develop at the outset a security architecture that will lay the foundation for protections of privacy, security, and intellectual property rights—safeguards that cannot be supplied as effectively on an add-on basis.”

Since the invention of the telegraph and telephone, intelligence and law enforcement agencies have conducted legal intercepts of communications both here and abroad. In general, these agencies used technically simple intercepts that targeted unprotected communications. However, the emergence of digital technologies and the increased availability of sophisticated encryption tools has dramatically eroded the government’s electronic intelligence and analysis capabilities. The proliferation of digital communications is making wiretapping increasingly difficult, while robust encryption prevents third parties, including law enforcement and intelligence agencies, from deciphering and understanding intercepted messages.

The administration, after coordination with the Congress, industry, and public advocacy groups, has developed a strategy designed to preserve the government’s ability to conduct electronic surveillance, wiretapping, and analysis of voice and data communications between criminals, terrorists, drug dealers, and foreign agents. This strategy includes a major new federal cryptography initiative known as the Key Escrow Standard (popularly known as the “Clipper chip” program), the Communications Assistance for Law Enforcement Act requiring the information industry to provide “built-in” wiretapping support in its digital communications systems, and restrictions on the export of encryption technology.

Key Escrow Initiative Intended to Improve Communication Security

The Key Escrow initiative is a voluntary program to improve the security and privacy of telephone communications in the private sector while meeting the legitimate needs of law enforcement. In essence, the initiative is the government’s attempt to preempt the threat posed by sophisticated encryption capabilities by offering the industry a relatively inexpensive, albeit government-controlled, hardware-based encryption system capable of providing secure voice, fax, and data services. To ensure that law enforcement agencies are able to understand Clipper-encrypted voice communications, the private encryption keys assigned to each individual Clipper chip are to be escrowed with the government. These keys will be made available to law enforcement agencies for court-ordered wiretaps.

The Clipper chip, developed by NSA, is a microcircuit incorporating a classified encryption algorithm known as Skipjack. The chip, and its close relative, the Capstone chip, contain a unique key that is used to encrypt and decrypt messages, programmed by the escrow agents. This unique key is then split into two components and delivered to two federal agencies—or escrow agents—for safekeeping. When federal authorities encounter Clipper chip encrypted voice or Capstone chip encrypted data communications during the course of court-authorized wiretapping, they may obtain the unique key necessary for the decryption of the wiretapped communications from the escrow agents. Figure 2.3 shows a Capstone chip and three prototypes of a Clipper chip.

In April 1993, the President directed the Attorney General to (1) request manufacturers of communications hardware that incorporates encryption to install the Clipper chip in their products, and (2) designate two government organizations as “key escrow” holders. The President also directed the Secretary of Commerce to initiate, through NIST, a process to develop federal key escrow encryption standards. Despite strong industry opposition, the administration reaffirmed its 1993 directive and instructed the Secretary of Commerce to approve the Clipper chip as a voluntary national standard for encrypted telephone communications. In February 1994, NIST formally approved the new standard. At the same time, the Attorney General designated NIST and the Automated Systems Design Division of the Department of the Treasury as the key escrow agents.

Critics of the Key Escrow initiative argue that NSA’s refusal to declassify and publish the Skipjack encryption algorithm raises the possibility that the algorithm may have a built-in “trap door.” Such a trap door would allow intelligence agencies to decrypt Clipper and Capstone encrypted communications at will, without obtaining the private keys from the escrow agents. The critics also note that since robust encryption technology is available both in the U.S. and abroad, there is no incentive for domestic and international industry or private citizens to adopt the Clipper/Capstone technology.

The misgivings about the Key Escrow initiative were also shared by the Computer System Security and Privacy Advisory Board. In its June 4, 1993, resolution, the Board stated that the administration has not (1) provided a convincing statement of the problem that Clipper attempts to solve, (2) considered other escrow alternatives including the designation of a third, non-government escrow agent, and (3) fully examined the legal and economic implications of the Clipper chip initiative. The Board recommended that the Key Escrow encryption technology not be deployed beyond current implementations planned within the Executive Branch until the significant public policy and technical issues inherent with this encryption technique are fully understood. The Congress asked the National Research Council to conduct a comprehensive study of national cryptography policy and submit, within 2 years, a report to the Secretary of Defense. In December 1993, the Board endorsed the proposal, noting that the study should be conducted as quickly as possible.

In July 1994, the administration reaffirmed its commitment to the Key Escrow scheme in general, and to the use of the Clipper chip for telephone communications in particular. It also offered a compromise on the development of the Capstone chip for computer and video networks. Specifically, the administration said that it understood the concerns that industry has regarding the Capstone chip and welcomed the opportunity to work with industry to design a more versatile, less expensive system. NIST and the information security industry have now initiated a joint effort to explore alternative approaches. Such alternative key escrow schemes would be implemented in software, firmware, or hardware, or a combination thereof; would not rely on a classified algorithm; would be voluntary; and would be exportable.

Legislation Enacted to Facilitate Digital Wiretaps

To address concerns about the potential loss of wiretapping capability due to the rapid deployment of digital communications, in October 1994 the Congress enacted the Communications Assistance for Law Enforcement Act. The act requires common carriers to ensure that they posses sufficient capability and capacity to accommodate law enforcement’s wiretapping needs. Specifically, the act requires that telecommunications carriers develop the capability to expeditiously isolate the content and call-identifying information of a targeted communication and enable the government to access targeted communication at a point away from the carrier’s premise. The act requires the government to reimburse carriers for all reasonable costs associated with complying with the act’s requirements. Critics of the act—including the Electronic Frontier Foundation—argue that it further erodes communication privacy, and that the Federal Bureau of Investigation has not adequately documented its need for sophisticated digital wiretap capability.

Federal Government Restricts the Export of Encryption Technology

Many of the U.S. encryption technologies, whether developed commercially or by the government, are subject to export controls. The Departments of State and Commerce share responsibility for controlling the exports of these technologies. However, computer industry representatives view the encryption export controls as counterproductive and economically damaging. For example, the representatives noted that because robust, sophisticated encryption technologies, including technologies on the U.S. Munitions List, are widely available in foreign markets, the export controls are reducing their international sales.

Our brief search of foreign Internet sites confirms industry’s assertion that sophisticated encryption software is widely available to foreign users. For example, we found that a number of European Internet sites are offering U.S.-made encryption software. In less than two hours, we identified several European sites offering the Pretty Good Privacy software, obtained it from an Internet site in Great Britain, installed the software on our computer, and encrypted a message (shown in figure 2.4).

Achieving Interoperability Is a Critical Goal

Interoperability—the ability of two or more components of a system or network to interact with each other in a meaningful way—is a key goal of the information superhighway. However, full interoperability among the thousands of networks, communications devices, and services that will comprise the information superhighway will be difficult to achieve. To do so, governments, industry, and standards-setting organizations must agree on well-defined international standards for rapidly advancing communications technologies, while manufacturers and service providers need to provide products and services conforming to these standards. However, the telecommunications industry is already deploying, or plans to deploy, a host of technologies and services that are based on ill-defined, anticipatory, or competing standards. To address this dilemma, the federal and private sectors have initiated interoperability efforts, including the assessment of various “open network” architectures.

Interoperability Will Be Difficult to Achieve

Interoperability will define the information superhighway. Without interoperability, the information superhighway will be fragmented into thousands of poorly integrated communications networks providing a bewildering choice of incompatible services. While policymakers, public interest groups, and industry agree that interoperability is a key requirement, they also agree that it will be difficult to achieve among the thousands of communications networks, computers, databases, and consumer electronics that will comprise the information superhighway. As discussed in chapter 1, the existing infrastructure suffers from significant interoperability problems.

New Technologies Being Deployed Are Based on Ill-Defined, Anticipatory, and Competing Standards

Because of competitive pressures, the desire to provide new capabilities, and a belief that the traditional standards-setting process is unable to keep up with the fast pace of technological change, industry is deploying, or is planning to deploy, a host of new technologies and services. However, many of these technologies and services are based on ill-defined, anticipatory, or competing standards, thereby further complicating efforts to achieve interoperability.

The effects of deploying new technology based on ill-defined standards is illustrated by the implementation of the ISDN. ISDN is an end-to-end digital network evolving from the existing telephone network. It is viewed as the first step in the conversion to a fully digital network. However, the initial deployment of ISDN resulted in the proliferation of “island” ISDN services that could not interoperate because the ISDN standards provided only a broad outline and lacked enough detail to ensure that all implementations would be identical. For example, ISDN users in New York and New England are unable to communicate data with ISDN users in the middle atlantic states. To alleviate the ISDN interoperability problems, the industry announced a plan to establish a consistent interface that would provide interoperability between local telephone companies, long distance telephone companies, and equipment manufacturers.

The deployment of the Asynchronous Transfer Mode (ATM) services provides an example of a technology deployed based on anticipatory standards. The broadband ISDN (B-ISDN) technology, which is expected to lay the foundation for the superhighway’s interactive, high-speed digital communications infrastructure, will rely on ATM/SONET optical fiber networks. However, critical ATM standards including global routing and addressing, resource management, multicast, and network management remain undefined. The industry is also developing products and services in the absence of less visible, but equally important standards, for data display and exchange, accounting and billing, network addressing and naming, and telephone number portability (see appendix IV).

The introduction of competing technologies is highlighted by the deployment of digital cellular systems. Digital cellular systems are viewed as a key component of the evolving personal communications networks. While digital systems will offer dramatically better performance than their analog counterparts, their near-term value in serving as a key link in the emerging B-ISDN network is reduced by compatibility problems. There are three principal digital cellular standards—the U.S. standard, known as the North American Dual-Mode Cellular System; the European standard, known as Global System for Mobile Communications; and the Japanese Digital Cellular standard. Although all three standards are based on the time division multiple mode access technique, they are not interoperable.

The Federal and Private Sectors Have Initiated Efforts to Address Interoperability

While the key players—the federal government, the computer and communication industries, and various user groups—appear to agree on the need for a fully interoperable information superhighway, there is no agreement yet on how it should be achieved. The principal federal organizations focused on superhighway interoperability include NIST and the National Research Council’s Computer Science and Telecommunications Board. The overall coordination of federal interoperability efforts is being examined by IITF’s Technology Policy Working Group. In the private sector, the FCC is working with industry to ensure the interoperability of selected technologies deployed in public networks. Industry has also established a consortium for the development and testing of superhighway applications.

National Research Council Advocates High-Level Architecture to Guide Interoperability Efforts

One promising approach to the planning for interoperability is to develop a high-level architecture—or framework—of the superhighway. This approach was advocated by a recent National Research Council report that presented a vision of the superhighway based on an open data network concept. Under this concept, the superhighway must be open to users: it does not force users into closed groups or deny access to any sector of society, but permits universal connectivity, as does the telephone system, open to service providers: it provides an open and accessible environment for competing commercial or intellectual interests, including information providers, open to network providers: it makes it possible for any network providers to meet the necessary requirements to attach and become a part of the aggregate of interconnected networks, and open to change: it permits the introduction of new applications and services over time; it also permits the introduction of new transmission, switching, and control technologies as these become available.

This concept, expressed as a high-level network architecture, could provide a set of specifications to guide the detailed design of the information superhighway. Without such a framework, the pieces of the emerging superhighway may not fit together. The IITF’s Technology Policy Working Group is planning to examine the open data network concept and its applicability to various industries, including cable television, broadcasting, communications and computer.

Industry Responds to Interoperability Problems

In an attempt to improve interoperability, the Network Operation Forum of the Alliance for Telecommunications Industry Solutions established the Internetwork Interoperability Test Plan Ad Hoc Committee. However, the committee’s effort was limited to solving problems with the Signaling System 7 (SS7) switching systems. The requirements for intranetwork, product-to-product, and stand-alone equipment modeling and testing were considered to be outside of the committee’s charter. Other aspects of existing networks such as interoperability testing requirements of newer technologies were also not addressed. So far, the committee has developed scenarios designed to test the interoperability of SS7 systems.

Network Reliability Is Emerging as a Key Challenge

Ensuring the reliability of the information superhighway will be essential. The public and private sectors are increasingly dependent on the existing telecommunications networks, which will be the foundation of the information superhighway, to meet their business needs. Yet recent outages on these networks have raised concerns and caused economic losses. Moreover, new technologies and industry trends will likely increase network vulnerability, making reliability of the superhighway a key challenge. The government and industry have recently taken several steps to address reliability, including the formation of the Network Reliability Council and the Alliance for Telecommunications Industry Solutions.

Reliability of the Superhighway Will Be Essential

In providing critical commercial and personal services, the superhighway will require a highly reliable network. The nation is already dependent on the existing networks, which will provide the underpinning for the superhighway. For example, in addition to conventional telephone services, computers are networked together, facsimile machines provide almost instant access to images and documents, and teleconferencing and videoconferencing have emerged as substitutes for travel. The number of electronic transactions conducted over these networks is enormous. For example, the value of the telephone transactions that take place daily on Wall Street exceeds one trillion dollars. Similarly, the Federal Aviation Administration relies on the public network to transmit air traffic control information between individual airports.

Public telephone networks are also being increasingly relied upon for emergency services. For example, the telephone has replaced fire alarm boxes as the primary method for reporting fires. Emergency 911 service can be obtained from personal or public pay phones. Telephones are also used to report medical emergencies requiring emergency medical technicians, and burglaries and domestic problems requiring responses from the police. Enhanced 911 service, available in many locations, is even capable of automatically routing the emergency call to a public service answering point, the facility in charge of answering calls and dispatching appropriate services in the caller’s area. The system also searches phone company databases to determine and report the caller’s location and telephone number to the dispatcher.

Recent Network Outages Have Raised Concerns and Caused Economic Losses

While the public and private sectors are becoming more dependent on networks, a growing number of major outages have raised concerns, triggered losses of service, potentially risked lives, and affected the economy. Several of these outages are highlighted below.

May 8, 1988: More than 500,000 business and residential customers lost telephone service due to a fire at the Hinsdale, Illinois, central office. During the following two weeks, approximately 3.5 million calls were disrupted. Hospitals with centrex service in the affected area could not make calls from one floor to another. Twenty percent of the departing flights from O’Hare International Airport were canceled and flights from other airports around the country had to be rescheduled. In a study of the Hinsdale outage, the University of Minnesota concluded that the cost of network failures to airlines could be between $2 and $3 million per hour and investment bankers could lose up to $5 million per hour.

Jan. 4, 1991: Maintenance workers in a cable vault in New Jersey accidentally cut an optical fiber transmission line that provided service to lower Manhattan. Sixty percent of the calls into and out of the city were disrupted for eight hours. The New York Mercantile Exchange and the Commodity Exchange had to shut down operations. Voice and radar systems that are used to control air traffic from facilities in New York, Washington, and Boston were disabled for five hours.

Sept. 17, 1991: Through a power sharing arrangement with New York’s Consolidated Edison, AT&T agreed to use its own power when Consolidated Edison’s facilities were heavily loaded. On this particularly warm day in September, AT&T switched to its own power. Batteries designed to meet the initial instantaneous power demand performed as intended. However, alarms that were intended to inform technicians to start the facility’s diesel generator had been manually disabled. When the batteries discharged, all telephone transmission systems in the facility shut down and voice and data communications controlled by the facility failed. Voice and data communications between the New York, Boston, and Washington Air Route Traffic Control Centers stopped. Three New York area airports closed for several hours. Flights destined for New York were either delayed or canceled. Air traffic at Boston was severely disrupted and delays occurred nationwide. More than 1,174 flights were canceled or delayed and approximately 85,000 passengers were affected. The day after the phone outage, flight schedules were still disrupted because aircraft were not at the right airports for the scheduled morning flights.

Sept. 10, 1993: A road crew boring holes for highway road signs in Ohio cut a high-capacity fiber-optic cable belonging to MCI. The cable, which carries most of the company’s east-to-west traffic, was repaired in about seven hours. However, millions of residential and business customers were unable to make coast-to-coast calls during that period.

March 15, 1994: During the early morning hours a fire broke out in Pacific Bell’s Los Angeles central office known as the Madison Complex. Before complete service was restored, almost 17 hours later, approximately 395,000 customers may have been affected and over 5 million calls were blocked.

Cable cuts, a source of major outages, occurred 160 times during the period between March 1, 1992, and February 4, 1993, with 93 (58 percent) of them caused by “dig-up” incidents, such as the one illustrated in figure 4.1. The average time needed to restore service after a cable cut was 5.2 hours with a maximum of 21.4 hours. The average time required to repair a fiber cable cut was 14.2 hours with a maximum of 97.5 hours.

On February 13, 1992, the FCC instituted mandatory outage reporting requirements for outages that affect more than 30,000 customers for durations lasting 30 minutes or longer. As of June 1994, more than 314 outages were reported. The calculation of the cost of an outage is difficult because of the variety of users that could be affected.

New Technologies, Network Growth, and Complexity Will Likely Increase Network Vulnerability

The deployment of advanced technologies, such as intelligent network architectures, common channel signaling, integrated services digital network, broadband transport facilities, customer control, and user-programmability, is increasing network complexity and vulnerability. The new technologies, described in appendix III, are also allowing network designers to concentrate more traffic into larger and fewer switches, and to rely on fewer higher capacity fiber optic cables to transmit hundreds of thousands of telephone calls. Failure of any of these high-capacity elements could be potentially devastating.

As the information superhighway grows, the number of networks and service providers is also expected to grow. Telecommunications consumers will increasingly acquire services from combinations of suppliers’ products, service providers, and network providers. Increasing network complexity will make it more difficult to isolate and correct problems.

The Government and Industry Are Taking Steps to Address Reliability

In 1991, the FCC, concerned about the spate of telephone network outages that affected a large number of subscribers on both the east and west coasts, established the Network Reliability Council. The council’s goal was to bring together leaders of the telecommunications industry, telecommunications experts from academia, and consumer organizations, to explore and recommend measures that would enhance network reliability. Members include the executive officers of most of the major U.S. telephone companies, principal equipment suppliers, long-distance companies, consumer organizations, corporate and federal user representatives, and state regulatory agencies.

The council established a steering committee and seven focus groups to deal with the key problem areas—signaling network systems, digital cross-connect systems, fiber cable cuts, fire prevention, enhanced 911 service, power systems, and switching systems (with a focus on software). The groups formulated recommendations for developing and implementing countermeasures to reduce the number of outages; monitoring the results; and modifying, as necessary, the countermeasures. The commission is now looking at these recommendations and considering regulations that would require the carriers and equipment suppliers to implement them.

In 1994, the Network Reliability Council restructured and created four focus groups. The first group will concentrate on network reliability; the second will examine reliability issues arising from expanded interconnection of networks; the third will study network technology and examine reliability concerns related to providing telephone service through cable, satellites, and wireless systems; and the fourth group will study the reliability of critical services, including 911, Federal Aviation Administration, military, and government.

The Alliance for Telecommunications Industry Solutions—a private sector organization—was formed to promote the timely establishment of telecommunications standards and operational guidelines. Its members include representatives of local exchange carriers, interexchange carriers, enhanced service providers, manufacturers, vendors, and end users who participate in a number of sponsored committees.

The alliance also sponsors the Network Operations Forum, a group of telecommunications industry access providers and customers who meet periodically to identify national operations issues involving the installation, testing, and maintenance of access services. In July 1991, the alliance began focusing on the area of network reliability. One of the forum’s subcommittees has developed traffic management guidelines that provide network management personnel with alternatives when emergencies occur. The forum also maintains contact directories for use in emergency situations.

Conclusions

While the information superhighway’s development is expected to be arduous, a grand vision of its capabilities is beginning to emerge among policymakers, industry leaders, and public interest groups. Viewed as a global metanetwork that will seamlessly and reliably link millions of users through broadband terrestrial and satellite digital networks, it is hoped that the superhighway will allow users to routinely receive and transmit large volumes of digital information, and ensure equal access for service and network providers. Achieving the grand vision will depend largely on how successfully industry and government meet the key technical challenges of security and privacy, interoperability, and reliability.

Security and privacy of databases and users’ communications is a critical issue. The superhighway will become an increasingly enticing target for intruders with the technical expertise and resources to cause damage. Given the complexity, size, and importance of the evolving superhighway, significant effort will be needed to define, develop, test, and implement security measures.

Interoperability among the thousands of networks, communications devices, and services that will comprise the superhighway is also essential, but will be difficult to achieve. The telecommunications industry is deploying, or plans to deploy, a host of technologies and services that are based on ill-defined, anticipatory, or competing standards. A coordinated approach will help reduce the risk of the superhighway being fragmented into thousands of poorly integrated networks providing a bewildering choice of incompatible services.

Because the proposed superhighway is intended to provide critical commercial and personal services, its end-to-end reliability requirements will be very high. The public and private sectors are already highly dependent on the existing telecommunications infrastructure and networks that will be the foundation of the superhighway. Outages on these networks have raised concerns about achieving reliability.

Government and industry are beginning to recognize these challenges. The administration’s Information Infrastructure Task Force, working together with the private sector, has formed committees and working groups charged with addressing security and privacy, interoperability, and reliability issues. The challenge remains for the major public and private players to work together to resolve these issues. With effective cooperation, the promise of the information superhighway can be attained.