NGI Initiative

Short for Next Generation Internet Initiative, a U.S. program designed to fund and coordinate federal agencies and academia to design and build the next generation of Internet services. The program was first proposed by President Clinton in 1996 and has not yet been formally specified or funded by Congress. It is still unclear how the NGI Initiative will complement other initiatives, such as the NSF's very high-speed Backbone Network Service (vNBS) and Internet2 (I2).