The Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF), a group responsible for monitoring how the Internet copes and evolves with modern use, has given praise to its strength over the past 10 years and spoken of future prospects:

"We've seen some interesting effects over last few years," explains Dr Carpenter [IETF chair]. "The net was growing at a fantastic rate at the end of the 90s. Then there was a bit of a glitch in 2000. We are now seeing a very clear phase of consolidation and renewed growth."

"Given it [the net] was designed for the whole community, it has done well to reach millions. If you want to reach the whole population, you have to make sure it can scale up."

IPv6, the standard that will replace the existing IPv4, will allow for billions more addresses on the net, and it is gradually being worked into network infrastructure across the world.

The BBC News Online article also highlights Voice-over-IP (VoIP) technology as being one of the many growth areas to watch in the future.

We can still remember fear stories from several years ago, when some analysts reported concern that a sudden global uptake of broadband technology could slow the Internet down. Certainly going from 56Kbps to several Mbps is no small change, but it’s held up.