Would the Federation have a true interplanetary internet?

[indolover]

There would still have to be computer networking in that era, since information would be shared between different computers and networks. So would there be in essence an Internet between the entire Federation?

I think in a sense there would have to be. If Picard sends a message to Starfleet Command about the Romulans breaching the Neutral Zone, then there has to be some kind of link or process on how data is sent between the Enterprise and Starfleet. There would also have to be standards/protocols also, so everything is on a level page (as in real life). I wonder if the Federation uses the DoD model still lol...

 

[Deks]

It stands to reason that a very advanced version of the 'Internet' (or it's equivalent) exists in the 24th century.
Internet is for the most part about exchanging information.
I would surmise that all Federation citizens can easily communicate with one another and share info like this... especially in a society as free as the Federation.

SF frequencies on the other hand would likely be reserved for SF alone and on a different system than from the general populace, or use the same system, but be separate for obvious purposes.

 

[Kemaiku]

I believe that was the idea behind the Memory Alpha planetoid in TOS, the books have continued the idea and represent it as a vast reposity of information from all over the Federation, accessed readily by ships all over their space.

 

[Stoek]

Hopefully someone with a better grasp of this will be able to explain what I'm about to say in a way that is more elegant.

But the best way I can put it is that by the 23rd and certainly the 24th centuries the internet is irrelevant. Because it's pretty much all one giant always on always accessible network, everywhere, all the time.

Sort of the way that in the 21st century posited by Back To The Future II with flying cars they don't "need roads" likewise the very nature of computing has changed so completely by the time of Trek that the idea of a seperate special network for computer based communication would be seen as at best quaint and amusing artifact of a more primitive time.

 

[Sandoval]

The porn you could access on that thing would be awesome.

 

[ngc7293]

If it's an interplanetary-net consider it dial-up at less than 300baud

Communication has always taken a long time between relay stations. By today's standards, Picard doesn't have broadband.

If I remember right, the federation is supposed to span 8000 lightyears. That is a bit of a distance for instant connections.

 

[Judy Waxhorn]

The porn you could access on that thing would be awesome.

Instant access to over 800 worlds worth of kink, deviance and delight.... all delivered directly to your holodeck. Plus advanced 24th century medical technology ensures that you'll never sprain your wrist OR go blind!


...seriously now. The image I find funny is Memory Alpha running as an interstellar Wikipedia. People posting stuff, stuff getting edited... revised... turned into a page of racial slurs, reverted, edited by someone with an ax to grind, reverted... all faster than the speed of light.

 

[Timo]

I believe that was the idea behind the Memory Alpha planetoid in TOS

According to the episode featuring that planetoid, it was more like the exact opposite of that idea: a central library storing lots of information that would all be lost if the library got physically destroyed.

Back To The Future II with flying cars they don't "need roads"

The funny thing being, they do. That is, Doc has to pilot the car between floating roadsigns and take an "exit" from a "highway" to reach a local destination.

This is one realistic way to do aircars: the resulting traffic congestion in the sky could be channeled into road-like virtual structures. The other way would be to do lots and lots of fancy computing to allow for seemingly free movement in the skies, something we can't do today even with the very low number of aeroplanes and helicopters up there. It could quite reasonably be assumed that this can be done tomorrow, though, as computing is the one thing that currently develops relatively fast.

On the other hand, I guess a future internet-replacing thing would not differ from today's internet in any remarkable way. How and why should the concept change? It's already "one giant always on always accessible network everywhere, all the time".

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Sandoval]

...seriously now. The image I find funny is Memory Alpha running as an interstellar Wikipedia. People posting stuff, stuff getting edited... revised... turned into a page of racial slurs, reverted, edited by someone with an ax to grind, reverted... all faster than the speed of light.

Patriotic Cardassian and Klingon nerds constantly editing the 'who started it' bit of the Betreka Nebula Incident entry.

 

[JarodRussell]

If it's an interplanetary-net consider it dial-up at less than 300baud

Communication has always taken a long time between relay stations. By today's standards, Picard doesn't have broadband.

If I remember right, the federation is supposed to span 8000 lightyears. That is a bit of a distance for instant connections.

Redundant database servers scattered all across Federation space would help a lot there.

 

[Timo]

Communication has always taken a long time between relay stations. By today's standards, Picard doesn't have broadband.

I'd say Picard does, and Quark does, even if Kasidy Yates does not.

In "Firstborn" (or "Bloodlines", I never can tell those apart), Riker and Quark have a realtime chat from Bajor all the way to the Klingon border. But Yates suffers from a massive delay in her Bajor-to-Cestus communications. Perhaps the broadband isn't all that broad, and only has room for the military and the wealthy and privileged.

Picard's only known comm delay (not counting the cases when Q or a comparable force of nature flung him to the edges of the universe, or to other times and spaces) was with respect to the Romulan Neutral Zone, in "The Defector" (2 hours 22 minutes) - the same place where Kirk enjoyed operational freedom because Starfleet Command was unable to respond in time (more than 3 hours here). Yet the Romulans supposedly aren't all that far away from Earth, or from Vulcan. Perhaps their space extends quite far and is the most hotly contested at the distant fringes? Or then Starfleet has real trouble maintaining a relay network in that area, meaning that a fairly proximal location can still be farther away from Starfleet Command than, say, Bajor is.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[T'Girl]

If I remember right, the federation is supposed to span 8000 lightyears. That is a bit of a distance for instant connections.

To directly answer the original thread question ... no, they wouldn't.

Even with subspace radio, the star systems are too far apart. You could send messages and futuristic emails sure, but the internet as we know it wouldn't work. The communications system, in terms of the time it took to exchange signals, would be back to what existed just prior to the telegraph here on Earth.

So, Earth, the Moon, Mars could have a subspace internet. But Earth and Vulcan, separated by days (maybe hours) in time, no way.

 

[Colonel Midnight]

^ Agreed. Kinda makes you wonder if there's an entire IT Support Fleet or division in StarFleet that goes from system to system, updating each planet's "information kernel" to the latest version (or at least, the most current version as of when that ship left UFP HQ), etc.

Cheers,
-CM-

 

[jayrath]

More to the point, Starfleet internet would be no fun. I want them out of touch, at the frontier.

 

[ngc7293]

Kirk: Scotty, Status Report.
Scotty: I've been on the comm with Tech support of over an hour and they keep insisting the problem is at our end.
Kirk: Damn it Scotty! I need that web cam in 15 minutes

Just the thought of Tech support in the future. I have the feeling it won't change. I am guessing Vulcans would get it in TOS era and TNG era....

 

[Timo]

You could send messages and futuristic emails sure, but the internet as we know it wouldn't work.

We know that realtime vidiphone calls work just fine in most cases. That's plenty enough for having the sort of internet we have today!

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Deks]

Indeed.
I would surmise that it also depends WHERE in the Federation you are.
Given the premise that real-time communications are possible across at least 100 Ly's by the mid 22nd century (per Enterprise)... I can easily imagine the whole Federation and colonies having instant access to the entire subspace network.

Kassidy Yates was likely traveling in areas that took her the least amount of time but could have taken her far out enough to cause a minor delay in messages.

We've seen this happen in Ds9 as well, although Ds9 messed so many things in that retrospect it's not even funny (messages travelling at subspace travel many times faster than max warp apparently).
I can imagine that there would be 0 delay in or near Federation space (which also might depend on the power/range of the subspace technology on your ship).
It's possible Kassidy used outdated form of subspace tech for communication which is why she experienced delays (her freighter was hardly state of the art).

 

[Lord Manitou]

Barkley discovered how to bounce data off stars with Voyager. Maybe the Internet will buy their own Midas array.

 

[EmperorTiberius]

Speed would depend on how powerful the relays are, and how many there are in a given area.

Internet-like networks would be privatized IMO, and are probably seperate from the communication networks we see officers use. Hence they would be slower and localized.

 

[Deks]

Why would they be privatized?
We've seen communication networks accessed and used by 'civilians' as much as the officers.
I would imagine that bandwidth wouldn't be an issue for them, and they can superimpose signals on top of each other with relative ease.

But I would surmise that it's a matter of using different channels in cases of officers and SF personnel with no speed difference.
All of them would probably go through the same subspace relay network.