Bob Frankston has posted an essay relating to Bruce Kushnick’s book at SATN.Org, a site he shares with Dan Bricklin, David Reed, and others. It is cross-posted there, along with other material.
Amatrya Sen: no famine has ever occurred in a democratic country with a free press and regular elections.
The Internet can deliver on the promise of a free press and more — it gives everyone a voice. It gives them a chance to contribute and prosper in a world economy. Why are we continuing to accept policies not only mired in the past, but policies designed to keep us there simply to support a pretend-industry created by a now falsified regulatory traditional.
Getting Connected is about policy. There is ongoing debate about "Net Neutrality" in an effort to assure that the carriers do not abuse their control of the rights of way. It’s reminiscent of the old notion of a "common carrier". I argue that setting such rules is likely to provide protection for the carrier by allowing them to comply with the letter of the law but not the spirit. The Internet is something very different than the phone network. The Internet is a proven success — we should be framing policy in terms of connectivity rather than treating it as just another service as if it were just another television channel.
Dana Blankenhorn has posted his own comments. Dana is far more practiced at writing to a general audience and many readers may find his presentation more accessible.
You should also read Bruce Kushnick’s "$200 Billion Broadband Scandal". Connectivity threatens the carriers’ ability to charge for the value of their services. There problems are structural so we shouldn’t be surprised that they are doing "whatever necessary" to try to forestall the inevitable but it doesn’t mean we can condone it.
Assuring Scarcity is an examination of cellular carriers’ policies. Today’s digital cellular system is borne of the very same technologies that gave us the Internet but turned 180°and used to maintain total control. I’m excited by the document because it makes my case for me. They come right out and say the Internet will give us abundant connectivity at a low price. But to them it is not a chance to fulfill Amatrya Sen’s vision — to them it’s a danger. It threatens their revenue and they must redouble their efforts to assert control in the best tradition of the railroad robber barons in the United States a century ago.
My January column in Von Magazine was a titled And Now with Billability. It was a satire about the carriers’ plan to extend this cellular strategy to land line service. It’s called IMS and, it’s not a fantasy — it’s part of this same GSMA strategy.
I use the term "connectivity" rather than speaking about the Internet as such because the Internet is a specific implementation of a particular set of protocols. The word "Internet" itself has a lot of semantic overloading with many people confusing the Internet with particular modes of use such as the web.
The Internet is about the idea that anyone can create solutions without having to depend on others. Unlike traditional networks the Internet doesn’t promise reliable delivery yet we can create reliable services at the edge anyway. It’s a very powerful concept I consider on a par with Copernicus message that the Earth was not at the center of the universe or even the solar system. There are a number of ways to describe this dynamic.
The Internet is based on the "End-to-End Principle". Unfortunately this is easily misinterpreted as just the opposite — womb-to-tomb in which the intermediary takes responsibility for all aspects of the service. This also means they get to define the services and set the rules. This confusion frustrates the creation of effective policy. The Internet provides opportunity but doesn’t guarantee any particular service will work — those who focus on the risks will want assurances and the intermediaries are very happy to oblige. In fact, they offer "quality" and how can anyone object. Yet that term is a trap — they define quality according to their metrics, not the users.
If we interpret quality for a voice conversation as "sounds better" then it turns out that Internet is rapidly evolving. Whereas it was once difficult to use the Internet to carry on a conversation, simply by increasing capacity the net is beginning to sound better than traditional phone calls, especially for international calls. The audio quality of calls is not limited by the PSTN’s predetermined "QoS" (Quality of Service). Not only can you get more capacity from the transport you can also take full advantage of the audio capabilities of the PC. You aren’t even limited to audio and can add video and maybe even a smell-o-vision protocol (but, please don’t).
As an aside, this is a good lesson in how evolution works. When you presume a designer you get a single optimum or measure of quality. The Internet allows multiple and unpredictable measures of quality to be achieved.
Cellular telephony as at the center of the debate. It’s easy to get faster connections but we can’t take advantage of connectivity is it not available. Cellular phones have given us a taste of availability but those who provide cellular connectivity have a stake in preventing competition. They must oppose untethered Internet connectivity because it is a threat to their profits. They are right but their profits cannot take priority over the fundamental needs of society. In the US it is a direct assault on free speech.
The increasing availability of cellular telephony in the developing
countries is an exciting development. It is an example of the
marketplace working the way the cellular companies say it should. But
cellular architecture places an upper bound on the deployment. It would
be better for these governments and those helping them to understand
what connectivity is and its value. The developing countries tend to
have punitive charges on international connectivity in search of short
term revenues. The effect is to isolate them from the world.
It’s easy to recognize the value of cellular telephony compared with
not being able to communicate. But this should not blind us from the
larger value of connectivity as basic infrastructure.
It’s easy to be discouraged by the apparent unlimited power and
influence of the carriers and the tendency for legislators to view the
future as more of the past — a past in which we had to have phone
companies and cable companies. But the issues are coming to a head
simply because technology is evolving quickly and we are becoming
increasingly adept at bypassing the gatekeepers.
The carriers themselves are telling us that we can have abundant
connectivity and they may not have a role in a real marketplace. In a
world beset by crises and in the grips of fear we can’t afford to turn
our backs on abundance merely because it threatens a few large
companies.
