What’s the especially big issue that holds back the Internet? What are the main functions of a firewall system?

Hast: Today, we’re going to examine some of the complexities involved in managing today’s Internet. And our industrial expert here for us today is Matthew Flanigan, President of the Telecommunications Industry Association. Matt, many thanks. Welcome to the program. What are some of the key issues that we’re still grapping with when trying to maximize the Internet’s sufficiency?
Matt Flanigan, President, TIA: Well, today I would say speed and bandwidth. Especially, a little smile up to the consumer’ is probably a big issue holding back the Internet. But security is also important with electronic commerce. And until they really solve that, people are not gonna feel secure.
Host: All right. Well, Let’s introduce our guest.
   We’re joined by an executive from Effnet: Tomas Althen. Welcome to the program. We’re delighted to have you. Tomas, let’s start with this. What sort of Internet issue is Effnet dealing with? What kind of solutions do you bring to the table?
Tomas Althen, CEO, Effnet Group: The Internet is growing at a very rapid speed at the moment. As you must know, the number of users doubles every year. However, also the information on the net doubles every month. And this calls up the two issues we have been hearing about here, speed and security.
Host: Well, let’s look at more details. Look at this video about the city council of Stockholm, Sweden.
Narrator on the video: Here is the power. The politicians and high civil servants at Stockholm County Council are used to having access to qualified information. Now with everyone using Internet and Intranet, some information has to remain secret. The decision on how to do this are mad here at IT Control. They have found the way to let 10, 000 employees use the Internet but some information can still be accessed only by qualified people.
   This is the firewall keeping the information system secure. A box in the basement with software from Effnet. Scandinavia is known for its technology. Cellular phones and Internet are part of daily life. And here in Sweden there are some young, very innovative up-starting companies. One is Effnet, founded in 1997 and already on the world market.
   As the world demands speed and security and reliability, Effnet’s gigabit router on a card makes security easier. The generic plug-in card, firewaller and router in one, proves that they are ready to meet the world demand.
Host: Well, how does the firewall work? We were told a few days ago that one of the new methods of transmission was to break everything up into little packets, send them all into the Internet and hope they arrive in the same order, and so on. Is the protection of these packets from being raided is this the principle task of the firewall?
Tomas Althen: You can say that in one sense. You also don’t want packets to come in to your data system, or into your network, packets which you don’t want to be there. You want to be able to decide for yourself as an organization or as a company: hey, I don’t want these guys to be able to access my treasure. And to do that you need to do some filtering. You need to decide which packets are allowed, which packets are not allowed. You have to do that very fast so you don’t end up with yet another bottleneck. And we solved that problem.
Host: Let’s look ahead a couple of years and have you estimate for us how you see this technology evolving. What do you think will be different or new on the horizon in a couple of years? Tomas?
Tomas Althen: More and more has been put into smaller and smaller spaces. We are making quite a leap in putting all these features on one card. But the next step is clearly putting them on one chip. And we are talking to chip vendors to try to do that as quickly as reasonable.
   They usually say that one year in this business is seven ordinary years. So, that would be 14 years from now. We’ll see things more and more integrated. For Effnet, in two years I would see that we are one of the preferred suppliers of network solutions.
Host: Well, that is all the time we have for this segment. Many thanks to each of you.