‘Father of the Internet’ gives vision of the future

Thursday, May 8, 1997 | 11:59 a.m.

What began as a fireside chat about the past, present and future of computer networking with "the father of the Internet" deteriorated into a fire-alarm chat.

But Vinton Cerf, senior vice president of Internet architecture and engineering with MCI Communications Corp., found time to tell a small crowd about the need to upgrade telecommunications transmission lines and a vision of a direct Internet link to the brain.

Cerf, billed as one of the top draws for the Networld + Interop show which continues through Friday at the Las Vegas Convention Center and the Las Vegas Hilton, had his informal talk on Wednesday marred by technical difficulties.

About 10 minutes into Cerf's appearance -- a sit-down coffee-table conversation with a colleague -- a fire alarm blared through the meeting hall at the Hilton.

Cerf and Dan Lynch, the man who organized the first Networld + Interop show a decade ago and a personal friend of Cerf's, swapped one-liners and feigned soft shoe through the din.

For the two speakers, who had just finished discussing some of Cerf's pre-Internet credentials, the interruption was laughable. But then, the noise wouldn't quit.

First came the sirens ("Worst case of gas I've ever had," quipped Cerf.). Then came a buzzer ("I'm afraid this has turned into a fire-alarm chat," said Lynch.). Then came a repeating intercom message stating that the alarm was under investigation ("This is all done by computers," said Cerf. "Nothing can go wrong ... go wrong ... go wrong ...").

The duo started and stopped three times, interrupted by a new alarm. By the time everything was all clear 25 minutes later, a crowd of about 1,000 had dwindled to about 100.

The promised question-and-answer session was canceled and Cerf, a recent winner of the National Medal of Technology, which he described as "getting a Nobel Prize without the $1 million," had only two anecdotes to offer about the future of the Internet.

Cerf predicted that with the advancements in speed and content on the Internet in the decade ahead that telecommunications companies will have to restring their local cable networks to offer additional capacity as data transmission capabilities climb to 700 gigabits per second by 2010.

He also related a story about his wife, who had a hearing impairment since she was a child, but recently had surgery for an electronic implant in her ear. Cerf said he was overjoyed when they recently shared their first telephone conversation in the 30 years he has known her. He marveled at how the implanted device brought her hearing abilities to a greater level than the human ear and how she can plug sound systems into a controlling device she carries to provide a direct link to her ear.

Cerf said he and his wife have wondered about the possibilities of direct telecommunications links.

"We may have the first Internet-brain link," he told the thinned crowd.

Prior to Cerf's appearance, Sanjay Kumar, president and chief operating officer of Computer Associates International Inc., offered a highly technical presentation on managing the Internet enterprise into the next millennium.

Kumar explained some of the engineering his company is accomplishing to solve problems involving incompatible technologies, differing standards and security issues in network computing.