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The Internet Should Be a Public Good

jacobinmag.com

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Re: The Internet Should Be a Public Good

#11

Post by borkborkbork »

okket wrote: post #9
borkborkbork wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The U.S. government seems to have no trouble achieving its commercial and surveillance goals under the current architecture.

Really? I only hear western governments whining that encryption threaten their surveillance powers [1][2]. [1] http://bigstory.ap.org/article/7d57f576e3f74b6ca4cd3436fbebf... [2] http://www.theverge.com/2016/8/24/12621834/france-germany-en...

Your argument assumes it's not within their power to end this threat. In fact, the Senate proposed a bill that does just that [1]. There's nothing inherent to the current architecture that prevents the government from compelling companies to do their bidding. We've seen that time and time again with NSA surveillance. The crux of this article is that the Internet was largely funded by the public, then handed over to an oligopoly of telecoms in the 1990's. There's nothing about this arrangement that protects average users. In fact, it is partially responsible for the U.S. having the slowest average broadband speeds of any industrialized nation [2].

[1] http://www.dailydot.com/layer8/encryption-backdoors-legislat...

[2] http://gizmodo.com/why-americas-internet-is-so-shitty-and-sl...

Re: The Internet Should Be a Public Good

#12

Post by borkborkbork »

tptacek wrote: post #10

This 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…

Are you saying that this couldn't have been accomplished by a public utility? Or that these companies have produced better outcomes? We made the choice to hand over the existing backbone that took decades and billions of dollars to build.

Re: The Internet Should Be a Public Good

#13

Post by badsock »

okket wrote: post #2

Most 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 be more difficult than delivering high voltage or pressurized water.

Re: The Internet Should Be a Public Good

#14

Post by tptacek »

borkborkbork wrote: post #12
tptacek wrote: post #10

This 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…

Are you saying that this couldn't have been accomplished by a public utility? Or that these companies have produced better outcomes? We made the choice to hand over the existing backbone that took decades and billions of dollars to build.

Yes, I'm saying this would not have been accomplished by a public utility.

I don't know what "hand over the existing backbone" means. Verizon's network consists of optical backhaul links, terminations, and a switching infrastructure that they spent billions to build over decades. They didn't inherit it, and I don't believe UUNet inherited their DS3s and AGS+'s in the 90s, either.

Re: The Internet Should Be a Public Good

#15

Post by borkborkbork »

tptacek wrote: post #14
borkborkbork wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are you saying that this couldn't have been accomplished by a public utility? Or that these companies have produced better outcomes? We made the choice to hand over the existing backbone that took decades and billions of dollars to build.

Yes, I'm saying this would not have been accomplished by a public utility. I don't know what "hand over the existing backbone" means. Verizon's network consists of optical backhaul links, terminations, and a switching infrastructure that they spent billions to build over decades. They didn't inherit it, and I don't believe UUNet inherited their DS3s and AGS+'s in the 90s, either.

They inherited NSFNET, which emerged from ARPANET. It's in the article.

Re: The Internet Should Be a Public Good

#16

Post by tptacek »

borkborkbork wrote: post #15
tptacek wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, I'm saying this would not have been accomplished by a public utility. I don't know what "hand over the existing backbone" means. Verizon's network consists of optical backhaul links, terminations, and a switching infrastructure that they spent billions to build over decades. They didn't inherit it, and I don't believe UUNet inherited their DS3s and AGS+'s in the 90s, either.

They inherited NSFNET, which emerged from ARPANET. It's in the article.

That's not what the article says. The article, by the way, generates the same question your last comment did: what does it even mean to "inherit" the backbone? Does it mean "be allowed to interconnect with"? That's a pretty counterintuitive definition of "inheritance".

Re: The Internet Should Be a Public Good

#17

Post by zdw »

badsock wrote: post #13
okket wrote: post #2

Most 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…

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 owned by the "Road Company" that also happens to be the "Car Company" and you can only use an expensive car you bought from them on their road.

Re: The Internet Should Be a Public Good

#18

Post by [deleted] »

borkborkbork wrote: post #15
tptacek wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, I'm saying this would not have been accomplished by a public utility. I don't know what "hand over the existing backbone" means. Verizon's network consists of optical backhaul links, terminations, and a switching infrastructure that they spent billions to build over decades. They didn't inherit it, and I don't believe UUNet inherited their DS3s and AGS+'s in the 90s, either.

They inherited NSFNET, which emerged from ARPANET. It's in the article.

[deleted]

Re: The Internet Should Be a Public Good

#19

Post by borkborkbork »

tptacek wrote: post #16
borkborkbork wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They inherited NSFNET, which emerged from ARPANET. It's in the article.

That's not what the article says. The article, by the way, generates the same question your last comment did: what does it even mean to "inherit" the backbone? Does it mean "be allowed to interconnect with"? That's a pretty counterintuitive definition of "inheritance".

Ah, you're right. Sorry for the misunderstanding on my part. They abandoned NSFNET and declined to pass regulations regarding the new privately built infrastructure. That begs the question: if the government so successfully innovated in this space during the 60's, 70's, and 80's, why did that have to change in the early 90's? Perhaps the prevailing political climate had more to do with it than economic or technical considerations?

Re: The Internet Should Be a Public Good

#20

Post by tptacek »

borkborkbork wrote: post #19
tptacek wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's not what the article says. The article, by the way, generates the same question your last comment did: what does it even mean to "inherit" the backbone? Does it mean "be allowed to interconnect with"? That's a pretty counterintuitive definition of "inheritance".

Ah, you're right. Sorry for the misunderstanding on my part. They abandoned NSFNET and declined to pass regulations regarding the new privately built infrastructure. That begs the question: if the government so successfully innovated in this space during the 60's, 70's, and 80's, why did that have to change in the early 90's? Perhaps the prevailing political climate had more to do with it than economic or technical c…

I think if you reread my top comment here you'll see me disputing the premise of your question. They funded R&D, much of it at private firms and more still at university CS departments, and orchestrated the installation of a not especially good backbone connecting (mostly) universities.

The thing we use today to watch movies on was built entirely by private companies, responding to the market, which detected and amplified user feature requests nobody even took seriously back in the Gopher days.

It's not just that the Internet of 1992 wasn't especially good: that Internet also solved an easier problem than the one we have today. In particular: more of the work could be delegated to leaf networks, and less expertise and capital was required to provide some semblance of a backbone.

I also object to the tone of this Jacobin article, which strongly implies that the backbone was somehow deeded over to telecom giants. That's false. I was the lead technical employee at a regional ISP in the 1990s, and made friends with many employees at our upstreams and at other companies. Lots of scrappy little companies rolled up to create the regional networks that were eventually consolidated into the giants we have today. Anyone who wanted to go all-in on rolling a regional network into a backbone provider had a shot in the 1990s.

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