The volume of information on the Internet and its use by our society will only continue to grow, with the Internet and a web presence becoming a "defacto" standard for most corporations, businesses, institutions, and associations in the future.  Multimedia Internet technology will continue to drive the Internet's innovativeness.  As society moves to the next millennium; television, motion pictures, and music will all be distributed digitally.  

The routine use of the Internet at home will further be facilitated by the increased speed of data acquisition through higher speed modems and access points to the Internet.  The increased demand will also push the next generation of Internet access, (i.e., Internet2 http://www.internet2.edu and http://www.ngi.gov) which will make possible a significantly higher speed of data transfer measured in terms of gigabits/second as opposed to present day kilobits/second.  

Society will continue to insist on "just in time" information of which healthcare plays a significant role.  It is through the unifying technology of Internet standards that make this a reality.  Access will grow seamless with more portable devices and the Internet "on-ramp" options such as digital and satellite networks and integration of multiple computer systems and applications through the web browsers.  The dental profession and those involved in patient care will only continue to increase their own utilization of this resource as well as provide content for this digital communication process.^25,26