In the early- to mid-1990s, I, along with Allison Mankin, managed the IETF effort that produced . During this process we asked many people for their for advice on the requirements for the next generation of IP. One person who responded was Hans-Werner Braun, then working for the National Science Foundation. He, quite seriously, said that we should assume we were developing the future of the world's telecommunications systems. Few, at the time, would have thought such a thing was possible, but Hans-Werner was right.

The Internet, and Internet-related technologies, have become the foundation of most modern telecommunications, both public and private.

It was not that long ago that editors of this column told me that their readers were not all that interested in so much Internet stuff -- that was sometime in the mid-1990s. I took it to mean that the editors felt that something else, maybe ATM, would soon replace the Internet and, thus, would be the future.

Well, the Internet, to date, has vanquished all pretenders to the telecommunications throne. That does not stop some telecom standards bodies or carriers from working on technologies to "fix" all those things that are wrong with the Internet. Nor does it stop some would-be regulators from trying to guide the direction of Internet development so as to minimize the disruption of the technological or political status quo.

While the Internet has been amazingly successful, the 'Net is now brought to most people by a small set of what were once traditional telecommunications carriers -- the very organizations that think the Internet needs fixing (usually in a way that provides the carriers with more control and money).