One of the problems that plagued the late-90’s Internet and played a major role in the eventual bust of the Industry was the lack of speed to deliver the next generation web applications that were so highly touted by the up-and-coming development companies (remember, this was just one of the problems). With so many users on dial-up, the experience was choppy and unreliable. Fast forward 10 years and suddenly we’re talking about Internet2 and the potential 100 Gbps network.

Internet2 is a non-profit consortium made up of 212 universities and 60 partner companies from Industries like networking (including heavyweights like Cisco Systems and Nortel), publishing, and technology (including Intel, Comcast, and Sun Microsystems), which develops and deploys advanced network applications and technologies. Although there was a concern the network was being used by students for P2P transfers, a couple hundred lawsuits seems to have fixed the problem – at least in the public’s eye.

While the average website may not require these types of transfer rates, with increasing demands on streaming media and shared data, these types of advances are important in maintaining and evolving today’s Internet experience. For more information, see this article on ars technica.