Will Metaverse be NextG Internet? Vision, Hype, and Reality
It addresses the gap between hype and technical reality in the Metaverse for researchers and industry stakeholders, but is incremental as it reviews existing platforms without proposing new solutions.
This paper examines whether the Metaverse can become the next-generation Internet by analyzing industry visions, reviewing existing social VR platforms as early prototypes, and conducting a reality check on network performance in platforms like Meta's Workrooms and Microsoft's AltspaceVR.
Metaverse, with the combination of the prefix "meta" (meaning transcending) and the word "universe", has been deemed as the next-generation (NextG) Internet. It aims to create a shared virtual space that connects all virtual worlds via the Internet, where users, represented as digital avatars, can communicate and collaborate as if they are in the physical world. Nevertheless, there is still no unified definition of the Metaverse. This article first presents our vision of what the key requirements of Metaverse should be and reviews what has been heavily advocated by the industry and the positions of various high-tech companies. It then briefly introduces existing social virtual reality (VR) platforms that can be viewed as early prototypes of Metaverse and conducts a reality check by diving into the network operation and performance of two representative platforms, Workrooms from Meta and AltspaceVR from Microsoft. Finally, it concludes by discussing several opportunities and future directions for further innovation.