The United States leads the world in information and communications technologies, but the nation must overcome several near-term challenges if it hopes to retain its global leadership, according to a recent study by the Industrial College of the Armed Forces.
Some of the key challenges include reforming H1-B visa allocations to maintain a strong U.S.-based IT workforce, monitoring the ongoing convergence of telephony, data, and video services, resolving the debate over Internet neutrality, and executing a strategy to protect critical information.
There is a perceived need within the information technology and communications industries to develop a homegrown labor force, not only for the viability of the economy and the industry, but also for national security requirements, the study said.
While the United States is struggling to produce domestic talent, many other countries are producing an oversupply. The explosive growth of higher education in many developing countries, particularly in Asia, has caused a shift in the global talent pool. China and India are producing more engineers than all industrial countries combined. Other industrialized nations are aggressively recruiting from these countries. Meanwhile, the United States has erected barriers for skilled migrants by restricting non-immigrant H1-B professional worker visas after 9/11, the study said.
Additionally, enrollment of foreign students in U.S. universities declined for the first time since the 1950s after Congress restricted student visas. This aversion towards foreign workers is depriving U.S. universities and businesses of the talent necessary to drive American innovation, ICAF students noted. If these skilled individuals cannot enter the U.S. market, more firms will be driven to offshore outsourcing.
The study recommended that the United States strengthen K-12 math and science education, increase training opportunities and raise the number of H1-B and education visas to pre-9/11 levels.
Another issue of concern is “net neutrality,” which is linked to the idea that broadband service providers charge consumers only once for Internet access, do not favor one content provider over another, and do not charge content providers for sending information over broadband lines to end users. It is actually a benign-sounding name for price regulation.
Influential coalitions of economic interests and academics have proposed that local broadband Internet access providers be prohibited from restricting access to their systems by suppliers of Internet services. Much of the academic interest in net neutrality arises from the belief that the open architecture of the Internet under current standards has been responsible for its remarkable success.
What does this mean to the average American? Today, Google, Amazon and Microsoft want government to regulate Internet access prices at zero in the name of “net neutrality.” Whereas broadband Internet providers like Verizon, AT&T, and Comcast want to charge content providers such as Google for sending information to consumers over their lines. Such regulation could substantially reduce investment incentives, distort innovation, and ultimately harm consumers, the study said.
In considering the reasons to manage the Internet, regulation should only be passed when it benefits the majority and enables innovation, the study said. Legislation in support of net neutrality could be beneficial using this litmus test. But there is also the risk that passing legislation on net neutrality may have an adverse impact on growth and innovation. Investors will not take risks in markets where government policies — such as those in place in the telecommunications market — discourage infrastructure improvements. It is doubtful that the 110th Congress will take on such a controversial topic before the presidential election.
The study recommends that the U.S. government refrain from regulating, but ensure the Internet remains neutral to foster creativity, innovation, and the greatest degree of content at the lowest prices to consumers.
The protection of sensitive and private information presents further challenges to the industry. Critical infrastructure protection is essential to the U.S. economy and vital to the continuity of operation of federal, state and local governments. The solution is not one that should rely only on government regulation. The United States has made strides recently in protecting critical infrastructure through publication of the National Infrastructure Protection Plan in 2006. Use of the model represented by the North American Electric Reliability Corp. of collaboration between the private sector and the government should be explored and expanded, the study suggested.
Countries and individuals are becoming increasingly concerned that a lack of “control” exists over the Internet. At one extreme of this argument are leaders in China, Iran, Burma and Uzbekistan who censor Internet content in their countries. The leaders of these countries believe that the Internet should be administered by a U.N.-mandated treaty, which guarantees them the right to filter content coming into their countries. At the other end of the argument are those who appreciate the creative evolution of the Internet but are genuinely concerned about the lack of mechanisms in place to prevent hacking, spam and cyber-crime.
Some experts have contended that the U.S. government exerts too much control over the Internet through its quasi-official relationship with the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN). The current arrangement over “dot com” registry is monopolistic — the private firm VeriSign controls more than 75 percent of the domain name registrations. There is a lack of mechanisms to provide security, monitor spam and prevent cyber-crime.
For the most part, “bottom-up” governance of the Internet is best, the study said. However, the proliferation of spam and crime on the Internet will need to be addressed by governments worldwide. Nations will have to cooperate and establish cross-border mechanisms, through organizations such as the Internet Governance Forum, to prosecute those who produce spam and viruses. The current arrangement is not effective and could lead to significant degradation of this ultimate “network of networks.”
In the next three years, the United States will see an explosion of wireless broadband to mobile devices that provide phone, Internet, MP3 players, Global Positioning System mapping, video-on-demand downloads, live television, location-based information services, on-the-spot financial transactions and real-time mobile video-conferencing. Additionally, the exponential employment of radio frequency identification (RFID) plus GPS location devices will allow customers to track anything, anywhere, anytime.
In the next seven years, nanotechnology manufacturing will vastly increase the speed and memory capacity of computers. In the next 10 years, breakthroughs in quantum computing will allow computers to do pattern recognition and artificial intelligence processing that will likely exceed the ability of the human brain. The convenience of these new technologies also brings a new set of vulnerabilities. Currently, industry is spending the preponderance of R&D money on products that it can speed to market. The focus is on technology deliverables and not enough on the research. The federal government is not spending enough to make up for this industry shortfall. This lack of sufficient funds will make the United States vulnerable to security and economic threats, said the study.
The U.S. government, and particularly the Defense Department, should embrace the industry’s development activities for wireless broadband and RFID technology, quickly harvest more powerful mobile personal digital assistants (PDA) and fully employ RFID to improve supply chain management functions.
The public sector should take the lead and fund basic research initiatives with quantum computers, given the needs for advancements in super computers at the Department of Energy and the National Security Agency.
The government also must adapt to the dawn of a new Internet protocol.
Internet addresses needed for mobile devices and network dependent products are increasing. Internet Protocol version 6 (IPv6) is the next generation Internet protocol designed to replace IPv4, which is predominantly deployed throughout the United States. The rapidly growing Internet-based economy needs far more addresses than IPv4 allows — the current limit is 4.3 billion addresses. IPv6 provides trillions of new Internet addresses, enhances security and improves functionality.
IPv6 ensures the successful implementation of the Defense Department’s “Global Information Grid,” providing seamless communications and interconnectivity. IPv6 has the potential to enhance public safety, disaster recovery operations and help support a “plug-and-play” environment. IPv6 also promises tighter security to ensure authentication and encryption across the Internet. This has the potential to facilitate more robust and secure e-commerce.
But the deployment of IPv6 faces a number of challenges, said the study. In the United States, a majority of the Internet infrastructure is IPv4-compatible. One of the biggest challenges of converting to IPv6 is rewriting the decades old software. Most of these programs were not written to be modular in nature, which leads to costly programming and testing. The implementation of IPv6 faces a number of additional hurdles such as managing the dual existence of IPv4 and IPv6 environment during transition, interoperability and security vulnerabilities. The Government Accountability Office warned that if devices such as firewalls and intrusion-detection systems are not properly configured to accommodate IPv6 features, then IPv6 traffic may not be detected or controlled, leaving systems vulnerable to attack.
Radio spectrum management is another matter of concern. The rapid growth of wireless subscriber services worldwide creates a large demand for radio spectrum. But many factors, from technical to regulatory, constrain the availability of radio spectrum for wireless services. Current policies do not allow new technologies to take advantage of unused spectrum.
Smart technologies, such as software defined radios, potentially allow operators to take advantage of the time dimension of the radio spectrum. Frequencies can be changed nearly instantaneously allowing use of allocated but unused spectrum. Cognitive radios, as well, would allow the sensing and acquisition of unused spectrum.
The United States, the study recommends, should adopt regulations that allow dynamic access to the radio spectrum and provide incentives for technologies that improve efficient use of spectrum.
Alan L. Gropman is a distinguished professor of national security policy at the Industrial College of the Armed Forces, National Defense University. The views expressed in this article are those of the author or industry study group and do not reflect the official policy or position of the National Defense University, he Defense Department or the U.S. government.
This article has been derived from an ICAF student/faculty industry report. To download a PDF copy of the report, click here.