Internet is a public good => government claims general regulatory powers over what goes through the Internet.
No thank you.
The Internet Should Be a Public Good
21–30 of 116 posts
Re: The Internet Should Be a Public Good
#22Most relevant Internet bodies are noncommercial organisations, like ICANN, IETF, RIPE, ARIN, APNIC, AFNIC, LACNIC, the various Internet exchanges (xxCIX), some DNS registrars are noncommercial too. But someone has to run the actual cables, manage customers, host servers, etc. I'd say the Internet has a very good balance between commercial interests and the noncommercial "public good". So good in fact, that some very…
In BC, Canada the provision of electricity and water are by provincial/municipal governments, have very similiar requirements in terms of running wires/pipes, and in my experience have delivered much better services. They don't constantly try to gouge me. I've had to call their support lines maybe a few times my entire life (as opposed to many tens of times for telcos). And I really don't see how sending bits could b…
Water delivery methods and techniques haven't changed much in 100yrs. Network tech changes rapidly. Government doesn't seem like the kind of place that deals with upgrades well
Re: The Internet Should Be a Public Good
#23Most relevant Internet bodies are noncommercial organisations, like ICANN, IETF, RIPE, ARIN, APNIC, AFNIC, LACNIC, the various Internet exchanges (xxCIX), some DNS registrars are noncommercial too. But someone has to run the actual cables, manage customers, host servers, etc. I'd say the Internet has a very good balance between commercial interests and the noncommercial "public good". So good in fact, that some very…
In BC, Canada the provision of electricity and water are by provincial/municipal governments, have very similiar requirements in terms of running wires/pipes, and in my experience have delivered much better services. They don't constantly try to gouge me. I've had to call their support lines maybe a few times my entire life (as opposed to many tens of times for telcos). And I really don't see how sending bits could b…
Imagine the utilities had to deliver water at an increasingly high pressure, every year, or you would be furious and frustrated. So, in 2000, they're running at 5 psi.
By 2005, they need to be at 50 PSI in order to keep you happy.
By 2010, you expect 250 PSI.
By today, you'd not be willing to tolerate anything less than 1000 PSI.
Internet is not water, it is not electricity. It should not be a "public good".
Re: The Internet Should Be a Public Good
#24Earlier quoted context omitted.
In BC, Canada the provision of electricity and water are by provincial/municipal governments, have very similiar requirements in terms of running wires/pipes, and in my experience have delivered much better services. They don't constantly try to gouge me. I've had to call their support lines maybe a few times my entire life (as opposed to many tens of times for telcos). And I really don't see how sending bits could b…
This is exactly right. Most services that lend themselves to a natural monopoly (because most people only really need one power/water/phone/internet line to their house/business) should be implemented as a publicly run infrastructure with value added ISP's on the end. The current vertical integration of internet providers impedes any new competition. Arguing for integration is like saying that all roads should be own…
> The current vertical integration of internet providers impedes any new competition
Wouldn't the government owning the service be the ultimate impediment to new competition?
I'm not defending ISPs, but lets not too quickly throw them under the bus.
Also, your casual throw-away comment:
> Most services that lend themselves to a natural monopoly ... should be implemented as a publicly run infrastructure
Requires the government forcibly taking over quite a few large companies.
That's a weighty request, and would be exactly the opposite of what we should want to see in the world.
Re: The Internet Should Be a Public Good
#25The internet already is a public good.
How so?
Re: The Internet Should Be a Public Good
#26This rosey view of the public-funded Internet ignores the reality of the network at the time. As recently as the mid-1990s, the entire Internet could netsplit , like a badly-run IRC network; there was a run of a couple days where commercial sites (like Ripco, my first ISP) couldn't reach any .EDU sites. Telecom companies like Comcast and Verizon "own" the backbone because they built it. Not just the backhaul connecti…
> Telecom companies like Comcast and Verizon "own" the backbone because they built it.
In Europe most of the backbone has been built by state-run public companies with public money. Only with the wave of privatization in the 90s the EU backbone has become privately owned (for various weird definitions of "privately owned").
However. When the backbone was publicly owned the "broadband" of the time (ISDN) was available to most of the population, including those living outside the big cities and in rural zones. 20 years later the current broadband (fiber) is available only in selected metropolies. The rest is delegate to "market failure" (official term of the trade).
Seeing networks are public infrastructures puts things under a different light. Water, gas, phones and electricity are available everywhere, even where it makes no economic sense, because it makes _human_ sense. Why can't we treat computers networks (access to information) the same? We have been doing it for 40 or so years before the privatizations. After 20 years, why can't we call this privatization experiment failed and go back to the previous state of affairs?
Re: The Internet Should Be a Public Good
#27From the article:
> It’s precisely the insulation from market forces that enables government to finance the long-term scientific labor that ends up producing many of the most profitable inventions.
It's this insulation that allows the government to waste billions and trillions on everything.
Innovation requires smart people and money. Neither of which the government can provide except by taking from the population as a whole. Therefore, the government is entirely unnecessary in the process, and usually quite counterproductive.
Re: The Internet Should Be a Public Good
#28This rosey view of the public-funded Internet ignores the reality of the network at the time. As recently as the mid-1990s, the entire Internet could netsplit , like a badly-run IRC network; there was a run of a couple days where commercial sites (like Ripco, my first ISP) couldn't reach any .EDU sites. Telecom companies like Comcast and Verizon "own" the backbone because they built it. Not just the backhaul connecti…
> Telecom companies like Comcast and Verizon "own" the backbone because they built it. In Europe most of the backbone has been built by state-run public companies with public money. Only with the wave of privatization in the 90s the EU backbone has become privately owned (for various weird definitions of "privately owned"). However. When the backbone was publicly owned the "broadband" of the time (ISDN) was available…
If you want your Internet service to be as responsive to customers as your gas and electric service is today, I supposed you could declare the experiment "failed". As I pointed out, I'm happier with an Internet I can watch movies and make phone calls on than I am with the one that repeatedly netsplit in the 90s.
Incidentally: ISDN was widely available everywhere where there were modern phone-switching networks, because they required very minimal upstream equipment to handle. Essentially, if you had already 5 years ago run copper to a Northern Telecom head unit, you'd basically already deployed ISDN. Every local ISP in the US was able to jam a couple PRIs into some Ascend boxes to provide ISDN just as soon as those boxes were available.
I don't think it's reasonable to compare ISDN to last-mile technologies that require new cables and new block-by-block termination equipment to install.
Re: The Internet Should Be a Public Good
#29Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Telecom companies like Comcast and Verizon "own" the backbone because they built it. In Europe most of the backbone has been built by state-run public companies with public money. Only with the wave of privatization in the 90s the EU backbone has become privately owned (for various weird definitions of "privately owned"). However. When the backbone was publicly owned the "broadband" of the time (ISDN) was available…
If you want your Internet service to be as responsive to customers as your gas and electric service is today, I supposed you could declare the experiment "failed". As I pointed out, I'm happier with an Internet I can watch movies and make phone calls on than I am with the one that repeatedly netsplit in the 90s. Incidentally: ISDN was widely available everywhere where there were modern phone-switching networks, becau…
Comparing the internet you have in 2016 to the internet that existed in the 1990's is a bit unfair, don't you think? The idea that only markets are capable of delivering innovations or necessary services to the public is debatable.
For example, the U.S. government, through DARPA, created countless valuable networking innovations that private companies, such as AT&T, didn't want to touch even when given the opportunity.
Re: The Internet Should Be a Public Good
#30Earlier quoted context omitted.
If you want your Internet service to be as responsive to customers as your gas and electric service is today, I supposed you could declare the experiment "failed". As I pointed out, I'm happier with an Internet I can watch movies and make phone calls on than I am with the one that repeatedly netsplit in the 90s. Incidentally: ISDN was widely available everywhere where there were modern phone-switching networks, becau…
Comparing the internet you have in 2016 to the internet that existed in the 1990's is a bit unfair, don't you think? The idea that only markets are capable of delivering innovations or necessary services to the public is debatable. For example, the U.S. government, through DARPA, created countless valuable networking innovations that private companies, such as AT&T, didn't want to touch even when given the opportunit…
I think if you read the comment carefully you'll see I'm not simply saying "the 'public' EU backbone provided rural ISDN", but rather that I'm making a more subtle point than that, about the nature of ISDN.
There's a reason an ISDN BRI provides the rate it does, and a reason why each of its B-channels is 64k: the digital phone network was already channelized that way.