The Future of the Internet Protocol

Notwithstanding the extraordinary success of the 4th version of the IP protocol, the scalability of mobile and multicast communications in the Internet is still a difficult challenge and substantial evolution is needed, especially in view of the steadily increasing demand for mobile and multicast communications and the growing penetration of overlay systems. Evolutionary strategies planning the functionalities of future protocols with a strictly technological approach are critical because market requirements need to be taken into account. In fact, the Network has already shown that it changes naturally, according to the needs of users. Development strategies accounting for market requirements are likely to be more successful and the impressive growth of overlay systems such as Skype telephony and multimedia streaming over IP should be taken carefully into account.