Technologies for Delivering Geospatial Information on the Internet

Introduction
The Internet and the World Wide Web are popular and successful largely because they are based on fairly simple, consistent, and functionally complete standards like TCP, IP, HTTP, and HTML. Likewise, electronic mail is prevalent and useful because of standards like POP and SMTP. These standards are successful not because everybody can understand how they work (or even what the acronyms stand for), but because they have been adopted by the hardware and software vendors who provide the engines and tools that make the Internet run. It is reasonable to expect that similar standards will need to be adopted in order for geospatial information on the Internet to be as popular, successful, and useful as the Web and e-mail. This paper highlights some of the current and emerging standards that can (or do) apply to geospatial information on the Internet. Many of the standards apply to both the wired and wireless Internet, but a special focus on wireless technology is also included.

This paper is not all-inclusive, nor does the author intend to indicate that the standards and technologies discussed are most likely to be successful. In fact, no attempt is made to draw conclusions about particular standards or technology. Rather, the aim is to provide education about some of the standards currently in use or under development. The only conclusion or prediction worth mentioning, which is stated here rather than at the end, is that internationally accepted standards will be critical to the widespread acceptance and use of geospatial information on the Internet.