Summary of Discussion: The Internet has rapidly evolved from a medium used by a subset of the scientific and computing communities in a limited geographic area to one used by many different segments of society internationally. Internet applications have evolved from the background exchange of text messages and small amounts of data to those requiring near real-time response and bandwidth capable of supporting multimedia data streams. As these applications increasingly become central to life in a technological society it is likely that high-bandwidth internet access will eventually be as univerally available as telephone service or radio and television broadcasts are today. This panel will address some of the technical, infrastructure, and regulatory issues that must be addressed as we move forward, speculate about some of the new types of applications that universal high-bandwidth access will enable, and consider some of the business opportunities and societal challenges that lie ahead.
Panelists: