"This book explains basic design choices that underlie the Internet's success, identifies key trends in the evolution of the Internet, evaluates current and prospective technical, operational, and management challenges, and explores the resulting implications for decision makers. The authoring committee - composed of distinguished leaders from both industry and the academic community - makes recommendations aimed at policy makers, industry, and researchers and discusses a variety of issues: how the Internet's constituent parts are interlinked, and how economic and technical factors make maintaining the Internet's seamless appearance complicated; how the Internet faces scaling challenges as it grows to meet the demands of users in the future; tensions inherent between open innovation on the Internet and the ability of innovators to capture the commercial value of their breakthroughs; regulatory issues posed by the Internet's entry into other sectors, such as telephony.". "The Internet's Coming of Age will be valuable reading for anyone seeking to understand what lies at the heart of the Internet's success - and looking for direction as the Internet continues to take shape."--BOOK JACKET.