LOS ANGELES : Vint Cerf, the retiring chairman of the board with the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers, today released "Looking Towards the Future," his Legacy Letter to the ICANN Community.
In the Introduction to the letter, Dr Cerf writes:
"Today, ICANN is larger, more capable, more international, and better positioned to fulfill its mandate. It stands for one global interoperable Internet and the model of stakeholder representation has worked.
"But the Internet and its vast user population have grown during the same time by a factor of over 20 in all dimensions. The 50 million users of 1997 have become nearly 1.2 billion users today. The 22 million hosts on the network have increased to nearly 500 million today. The bandwidth of the core data circuits in the Internet have grown from 622 million bits per second to between 10 and 40 billion bits per second.
"This dramatic growth in physical size has been accompanied by an equally dramatic growth in the number and diversity of applications running on the Internet. All forms of media now appear on and are carried by Internet packets. Consumers of information are producing more and more of it themselves with email, blogs, instant messaging, social and game playing web sites, video uploads, and podcasts.
"The Internet continues to evolve and while ICANN has achieved more than most people realize, it must continue to evolve along with it."
The entire statement is online at: http://www.icann.org/documents/vint_cerf/lttf.htm
About ICANN:
ICANN is responsible for the global coordination of the Internet's system of unique identifiers like domain names (like .org, .museum and country codes like .uk) and the addresses used in a variety of Internet protocols that help computers reach each other over the Internet. Careful management of these resources is vital to the Internet's operation, so ICANN's global stakeholders meet regularly to develop policies that ensure the Internet's ongoing security and stability. ICANN is an internationally organized, public benefit non-profit company. For more information please visit: www.icann.org.
Media Contacts:
Jason Keenan
Media Adviser, ICANN (USA)
Ph: +1 310 382 4004
E: jason.keenan@icann.org
International: Andrew Robertson
Edelman (London)
Ph: +44 7921 588 770
E: andrew.robertson@edelman.com