In France , the Internet replaced the Minitel, a quirky obsolete device in a world where PC's were about to prevail. Mobile phones replaced landlines, which were no longer suited to our lives of mobility and motion. End of story? Is nothing really going to replace the Internet and mobile handsets?

At Ozone, we believe that the Internet and mobile communications are merely intermediate stages in the history of networks and their possible applications. Changes are taking place in devices around us, in our habits, our lifestyles, our dependence on technologies… this continually revises the type of Networks we need. The world has changed a lot since the early Nineties, when the Internet and mobile phones appeared. It's now time to think about the next generation and kick off the next revolution. In a few years' time, today's Internet and cell-phones will have gathered dust, too.

The basic blueprint for the next generation is quite obvious, if you look back at the historical evolution of the past 50 years. The next generation of Networks and their Uses are also announced by a few innovative phenomena that emerged in recent years. A quick review of these indicators will help to comprehend Ozone’s vision and shed new light on the work we have already undertaken.

Towards the virtual computer

In the beginning, electronic components were expensive. Computers were massive, and there weren’t many around. To enjoy them, humans had to get together and gather around a Central Computer (Mainframe), sometimes even taking turns to use it, through a terminal. Those were the days of ONE computer, MULTIPLE users . The Minitel was a quintessential device of the time.

And then, microchips got cheaper and cheaper. So cheap that everyone could now have his or her very own computer. They were even called Personal Computers (PC’s), just to show how much times had changed. Those were the days of ONE computer for ONE user . The Internet - as we now know it - was the Network of the time.

And chips went on multiplying and breeding. Costs were brought down to near nothing. So there were chips all over: in moving cars, in television sets and phones, in doorknobs and elevators, in hairdryers and music machines. And naturally, in those machines which, even though no longer alone in including intelligent microchips, were the only ones called computers but came in all kinds of shapes and sizes .

Men navigated this sea of island-objects and body extensions. Each one talked to him in a different language, and seldom stooped down to talking with devices from another species. These were the early days of SEVERAL computers (or intelligent machines) for ONE user . But no specific network had yet been designed for this new age.

And men got dreaming. "Shouldn’t there be a network that made all my devices collaborate at all times, converse spontaneously among themselves and with the rest of the world, and all together make up a kind of single virtual computer - the sum of their respective intelligence, knowledge and know-how?"

From PC, Personal Computer, to PN, Personal Network

In the olden days, men lived in clusters around one Great Computer, because only the rich and powerful could build or own such a precious thing. Then, men were given the PC: they could now enjoy their very own Computer. All men became free to harness the power bequeathed to them and assign it any useful, personal or incongruous task they wished .

What if the same could happen in the field of telecommunications? Up to now, building a network was an expensive and complex endeavour, something for the rich and powerful. So men gathered around the Great central Network, as they had before with their Mainframe .

Today, with technologies such as Wi-Fi, it’s cheap and reasonably easy for anyone to set up a network (albeit short-ranged). Could this not give rise to Personal Networks or User Networks, just as there are Personal Computers? Created by individual initiatives, by groups of individuals, corporations, or organizations, they would multiply freely, and grow according to their users’ immediate needs. And very soon, in the same way a person often belongs to several networks, these micro-networks will end up holding hands and finally merge seamlessly. short-ranged). Could this not give rise to Personal Networks or User Networks, just as there are Personal Computers? Created by individual initiatives, by groups of individuals, corporations, or organizations, they would multiply freely, and grow according to their users’ immediate needs. And very soon, in the same way a person often belongs to several networks, these micro-networks will end up holding hands and finally merge seamlessly .

The “Micro-Internet”

Remember that the Internet is not a network per se, but the meta-network interconnecting vast numbers of networks themselves set up by public or corporate entities. It was set up around the concept of peering. Peering is just a question of allowing traffic from another network to pass through your own, and vice versa .

Advancing the idea of peering between Personal Networks, i.e. by interconnecting different Personal Networks, could further the underlying logic that originally ruled the Internet. We would witness the birth of a Macro/Micro Internet, or rather an extension of the Internet to lesser levels of granularity (or fractal).

Thus, hundreds of mere micro-initiatives would converge and offer a cheaper, quicker opportunity to build a (wired and wireless) global network. In other words, to follow in the footsteps of what the Internet has achieved to this day

And now... Pervasive Network and Services

Combine the Internet (mainly wired) in its current state of development with a Macro/Micro Internet (mainly wireless, conceivably) and let it grow organically, nurtured by its users: what do you get? A single (meta) network, omnipresent both indoors and outdoors.

The Pervasive Network is this omnipresent network. Its components (which sections use wire, which don’t, who are the providers?) are seamless for the final user; it’s always open, ensuring permanent connections anywhere; it’s agnostic in terms of applications, as it’s based on actual Internet protocols.

And as the Network is becoming omnipresent, as it was born from the conjunction of multiple neutral networks, as it cannot belong to the same operator end to end, it is no longer conceivable to restrain the user in the applications he chooses to use. Restricting a service to a particular connection or a specific provider becomes absurd. If the network is everywhere, the services it provides should be accessible from everywhere, regardless of the way you connect to the network, of who actually built it, of the device you use. Making the network omnipresent (i.e. Pervasive) means we now need to reconsider the Services on this network, and make them Pervasive too.

A few features of the “Pervasive Network”

The Pervasive Network is technologically agnostic. It incorporates any type of wired or wireless link and any type of transmission protocol. As its aim is to achieve truly continuous connection, the point will be to use the most suitable technology for the lowest cost in a given context. Though Wi-Fi and other new wireless standards are the main candidates for the Pervasive Network’s genesis, they won’t be its only components.

Like the Internet, the Pervasive Network can only result from the combination of initiatives on different scales. The coverage and granularity levels that the Pervasive Network entails means it would be wholly unrealistic for a limited number of operators to build it, whatever their nature and vocation. There can only be one Pervasive Network, just like there is only one Internet. And as with the Internet, no one would own the Pervasive Network.

The idea of a Pervasive Network has nothing to do with Mobile Internet solutions (“second-rate” Internet) or Hot Spots (connection oasis). It’s not about setting up gateways allowing connection to the Internet: it’s about extending the Internet all over.

Pervasive Network "Specs" overview:

Unlike operators who build a network first, and then struggle to find ways to use it, the Pervasive Network’s specifications must be defined according to needs and usage:

Connecting any type of machine

The Pervasive Network must allow any type of device to connect. It is not designed for a given family of specific devices (for instance mobile phones, be they fitted with a camera). The Pervasive Network is the infrastructure required by the emergence of intelligent objects (or Ambient Intelligence). It must connect any type of device for all types of use (for instance digital cameras that are not also phones).

The Pervasive Network is designed for Man/Machine, but also Machine/Machine uses. One of its aims is to achieve inter-communication between as many devices as possible, to make the idea of communication more commonplace, and to “de-isolate” the myriad island-objects surrounding the user. This is wholly consistent with the overall trend that sees IT spreading across heterogeneous environments: grid computing, web services etc.

…All over, all the time…

The Pervasive Network is the network for continuity and permanence in communications. It forms the basis for distributed computing/electronics in which objects are interdependent (as with Web Services, for instance). This is why the Pervasive Network must naturally be connected permanently and seamlessly, both indoors and outdoors. Users should no longer need to switch devices when leaving the comfort of their home.

…Broadband

Communication between objects or distributed, interdependent computing must enjoy sufficient bandwidth, i.e. reasonably high speed, in order to function seamlessly and remain transparent for the user.

The Pervasive Network must abolish all notions of space; any perceived sluggishness in the Network makes distances unbearably tangible.

…At an imperceptible cost…

The big challenge for a new Network is no longer an operator's capacity to implement a technology. It's the Network's ability to resonate within a Society, in the opportunity given to Society to adopt and adapt its usefulness. Networks without uses-or Networks the use of which are thought up by an operator who tries to convince you it's useful-are doomed. There is no shortage of network technologies, but there aren't that many with convincingly relevant uses.

To allow new uses to emerge, the whole of Society must be empowered: any user, individual, company, or public body must be given an opportunity imagine, suggest, or discover new uses. The Internet thrived on ideas which were sometimes accidental, and absolutely none of which was thought up by a telecommunications corporation. An open and agnostic network, with a truly affordable cost of access and use, would leave the door open for all kinds of innovations from all over the place, a flow of initiatives, ideas and uses, from which basic, mass applications would surely emerge.

Building a low-cost network, so that it can be used for a price that won't hurt: this is the key if any new generation of Networks is to succeed.

…But not with just anyone/anything…

In a world where the default state of persons and objects is to be connected and accessible, where sharing one’s resources with other users is straightforward, issues of security, confidentiality and non-pollution of one's privacy are key.

The Pervasive Network must include technology that is easily user-customizable in order to define which persons or objects hold access rights to it or to their devices, what the user wishes to share and what he wants to keep to himself. When you make communication self-evident, you have to reinvent it; you have to give it meaning and value.

Based on this vision of future networks, of a Pervasive Network & Services dream shared by an increasing number of people around the world, Ozone is undertaking the following endeavours . In 2003, we started rolling out the Pervasive Network, as well as imagining and developing its Pervasive Services.