A contractor that played a key role in the internet's birth will oversee efforts to redesign the network from scratch.

The National Science Foundation announced today BBN Technologies will get up to $US10 million ($A12.1 million) over four years to oversee the planning and design of the Global Environment for Network Innovations (GENI).

Many researchers want to rethink the internet's underlying architecture, saying a "clean slate" approach is the only way to truly address security, mobility and other challenges that have cropped up since the internet's birth in 1969.