The Internet is enough of a marvel that most people would never ask, ’Is this really how we would build it if we could design it all today?’ But asking that very question is the job of a broad-based team of Stanford researchers. Taking a nothing-is-sacred approach to better meet human communications needs, this month the group is launching a new program called the Clean Slate Design for the Internet, according to a Stanford University statement. It will present its ideas March 21 during a daylong workshop at the annual meeting of the Stanford Computer Forum.

"How should the Internet look in 15 years?" asks Nick McKeown, an associate professor of electrical engineering and computer science who is leading the effort. "We should be able to answer that question by saying we created exactly what we need, not just that we patched some more holes, made some new tweaks or came up with some more workarounds. Let’s invent the car instead of giving the same horse better hay."

Hardly some naive dreamer, McKeown is a seasoned expert and entrepreneur who has made substantial contributions to developing the router technology at the core of today’s Internet. Project co-director and electrical engineering professor Bernd Girod, meanwhile, has been a pioneer of Internet multimedia delivery, both by contributing directly to standards for digital video encoding and by founding and advising startup companies. Also sharing in this vision of fundamentally new ways to engineer a global communications infrastructure are faculty from three engineering departments and the Graduate School of Business who have signed on to conduct research in the program. Supporting them are industrial affiliates including Cisco Systems, Deutsche Telekom and NEC.

The research also closely complements two projects under way at the National Science Foundation. The first, called GENI, for Global Environment for Network Innovations, aims to build a nationwide programmable platform for research in network architectures. The second, called FIND, for Future Internet Network Design, aims to develop new Internet architectures.

The point of these efforts is not that the Internet is broken—just that it has become ossified in the face of emerging security threats and novel applications.

"The Internet was one of the truly great human achievements of the 20th century, but much more can be done if we rededicate ourselves to its redevelopment with the same creative spirit," says Stanford University President John Hennessy, also a professor of computer science and electrical engineering. "Stanford can make a unique contribution because of the breadth and depth of world-class expertise in all aspects of global communications, networking, economics and security, and because of our longstanding collaboration with key innovators in industry."