Computer science professors James Griffioen and Ken Calvert have received a National Science Foundation grant worth nearly $700,000 to “develop a new architectural design for the Internet of the near future.”  Their work is part of a $2 million joint project with the University of Massachusetts, North Carolina State University and the Renaissance Computing Institute (RENCI).

“Recent trends in technology and network use have pushed the capabilities required of the Internet beyond what can be provided by the current infrastructure,” said Dr. Calvert, chair of the Department of Computer Science. “There is a large and growing research community working on building and using something better.”

The project would place sustained innovation at the core of the new network, effectively enabling choice to be the central aspect of the architecture. “A key element that was under-emphasized in the design of the original Internet protocols was the economic incentives — they were just trying to make it work.  One result is that there is little opportunity for competition in today’s network.  The focus of our approach is to leverage economic principles and allow users to `vote with their wallet’ to reward superior and innovative services,” said Dr. Griffioen, the project’s Principal Investigator.  “This kind of network will be able to adapt emerging solutions for current and future challenges.”

Undergraduate and graduate students from each participating institution will contribute to the project, which is titled: “Network Innovation Through Choice,” and the results will be made available through open-source models and literature.