There is growing concern within the higher education community regarding the performance of today's commodity Internet service provided by industry. A quote from one higher education group developing a white paper on this topic follows.
"The Internet, which was largely developed by higher education, has a profound effect not only on research and instruction, but also on business and industry. There is a growing consensus among the scientists and engineers that created and now depend on the network, that the performance of the commodity Internet is declining and may not evolve to meet higher education's future capacity and service needs"
These performance and growth concerns are typically based on perceived or word-of-mouth experiences rather than quantifiable statistical information. An issue worth discussion is seeking a solution to this absence of performance data from private providers or any, currently available, alternative means for generating and reporting such data. If useful data were available, the magnitude and immediacy (or lack thereof) of higher education's concerns could be better addressed.