This is a very interesting book that has 14 chapters on the future of different types of networks, such as the Internet of Things, energy networks, and cloud networks. The chapter contributors are primarily Bell Labs employees or from Bell Labs Consulting. The president of Bell Labs is listed as the author for the book; however, this is a collection of chapters by several other researchers, nearly 70 of them.

In the first chapter, the author lays out the vision for future networks of various types and points out how the future network would depend on heavy power consumption and the use of cloud services. There are several charts throughout the book that provide additional statistical data on Bell Labs’ projections on the various topics. The chapter lengths vary from 25 to 40 pages. Chapter 3 deals with issues of security and how they are likely to be tackled in future networks. One of the points made here is that malware has become highly sophisticated and because of that traditional antivirus solutions are unable to catch all attacks. In this context, it is pointed out that attackers are persistent and use many tools; such attacks are known as advanced persistent threats (APTs). One of the largest chapters is on wide area networks. The discussion here shows the importance of dynamic connectivity and tunable network fabric. This chapter emphasizes the need for a network operating system (OS) instead of just a computer OS.

Chapter 5 discusses the future of cloud networks. One of the key points emphasized in this chapter is the need for dynamic scalability in the network. The importance of local processing of high-bandwidth streams for video analytics is discussed in this chapter from the perspective of cloud storage. The importance of expanding the cloud to the edge to support a variety of new services is highlighted. Chapter 6 discusses the future of wireless access. Such a system must be capable of providing seemingly infinite capacity for the users to store, process, and communicate with others. The next three chapters deal with Bell Labs’ projection on how the future broadband network would look and what the demands on such a network would be, howl an enterprise local area network will look in the future, and how the future communications technology is expected to provide a unifying theme. Chapter 10 deals with the future of information networks. It is pointed out that data is expected to be available for users to analyze for free even though it will cost the collectors significant time and resources. Also, what is considered “big” data now will become “small,” and people will derive plenty of knowledge from a variety of data sources.

The last four chapters provide a perspective on future networks for the home through the Internet of Things, discuss how technology will be used in a future home, explain how future network operations will be handled, and describe what the future energy network will look like. These four chapters provide statistical evidence to show how future networks for these applications will evolve. The chapter on energy aspects for network use and all of the devices that will be part of the future network is very revealing as to how the advances should take place in various fields to support the future networks.

Overall, the book is very well laid out and the topics are well researched. Plenty of statistical evidence for the reasoning is provided. Each chapter concludes with a set of references to explore additional related material. A book of this size needs an index at the end, but it is lacking. Readers will find the material to be thought provoking.

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