Bell Labs President Shares His Vision of the Future of Communications.

Business & Science Editors

SINGAPORE--(BUSINESS WIRE)--June 7, 2000

A network of networks will enfold the earth

in a communications "skin"

Arun Netravali, the president of Lucent Technologies' R&D arm, Bell Labs, predicted radical changes for the future of communications in his keynote address at the CommunicaAsia2000 conference here today.

"A mega-network of networks will enfold the earth in a communications skin with ubiquitous connectivity and enormous bandwidth," said Netravali. "The skin will include countless sensors and other communicating devices that will provide us with the information on virtually every single thing that impacts our lives -- devices such as thermostats, pressure gauges, pollution detectors, cameras and alarm systems."

According to Netravali the interfaces for connecting all the sensors and other devices to the mega-network skin will become extremely cheap, so anything that can be connected to the network will be. By 2010, there will be so many interconnected devices that the volume of "infrachatter" among communicating machines will surpass communications among humans. "The sensors and other devices will transmit data directly to the mega-network, just as our skin transmits a constant stream of sensory data to our brains," he said.

Netravali also envisions that today's Internet will dramatically transform to a broadband "Hi-IQNet" -- with natural interfaces, active Web sites, and software agents to extract desired information via text, voice, images and video. "The Hi-IQNet will respond to spoken commands without regard to language or accent and will be able to find the information and services you want, even if you only have a vague idea of what you're looking for," he said.

He also discussed the potential for the Hi-IQNet acting as a high-level mediator to bring together humans and information of all kinds. "We'll be able to connect to and consult with just about anyone, no matter where they are, just by asking the network to find them," said Netravali. "If I'm connected to a colleague in China, he can answer in his own language, and the Hi-IQNet will translate for us in real time."

Netravali made several other predictions for the future of information networking, including the growth of a new Age of Virtuality that will transform the way people live and conduct their business. "With virtual enterprises, travel, business conferences, offices, universities, and a host of other virtual experiences, distance will become irrelevant," he said. He also foresees individuals and businesses having a variety of individualized, custom services, written by countless programmers on an open mega-network. Netravali's final prediction was that services, not bandwidth, will become the key factor in charging customers. "Bandwidth will be too cheap to meter," he said.

More information on these and other predictions from Bell Labs can be found at http://www.lucent.com/press/1199/991112.bla.html.

Bell Labs is celebrating its 75th anniversary this year. One of the most innovative R&D entities in the world, Bell Labs has generated more than 40,000 inventions since 1925. It has played a pivotal role in inventing or perfecting key communications technologies for most of the 20th century, including transistors, digital networking and signal processing, lasers and fiber-optic communications systems, communications satellites, cellular telephony, electronic switching of calls, touch-tone dialing, and modems.

Today, Bell Labs continues to draw some of the best scientific minds. With more than 30,000 employees located in 25 countries, it is the largest R&D organization in the world dedicated to communications and the world's leading source of new communications technologies. In a recent report, Technology Review magazine said Bell Labs patents had the greatest impact on telecommunications for 1999.

Lucent Technologies, headquartered in Murray Hill, N.J., U.S.A., designs and delivers the systems, software, silicon and services for next-generation communications networks for service providers and enterprises. Backed by the research and development of Bell Labs, Lucent focuses on high-growth areas such as optical and wireless networks; Internet infrastructure; communications software; communications semiconductors and optoelectronics; Web-based enterprise solutions that link private and public networks; and professional network design and consulting services. For more information on Lucent Technologies and Bell Labs, visit the company's Web site at http://www.lucent.com or the Bell Labs Web site at http://www.bell-labs.com.