IP: Paradox of the Best network

[David Farber <dave () farber net>]

> Date: Sat, 26 Jan 2002 05:16:23 -0800
> From: Kevin Marks <kmarks () apple com>
> To: farber () cis upenn edu
>
> This is a brilliantly written [ interesting djf] summary that you should 
> all send to your congressmen:
>
> http://www.netparadox.com

Abstract by Copernic

A few short months seemed that humanity stood on the edge of a 
communications revolution.

New technology promised to topple barriers of space and time.

Now a grim face replaces yesterday's optimism.

Prospects of new connectedness recede as capital markets tighten, existing 
telephone companies back off on capital expenditures, established 
communications equipment suppliers falter, and ambitious new telecom 
companies fail.

Despite the darkened outlook, new communications capabilities are within 
reach that will make the current Internet look like tin cans and string.

Radically simplified technologies can blast bits a million times faster 
than the current network at a millionth of the cost.

It's not even that the communications revolution has been derailed by inept 
or self-aggrandizing behavior by incumbent telephone companies and their 
government regulators.

It provokes incumbent companies to mass lawyers and lobbyists to thwart the 
development of a competitive communications market.

It causes investment capitalists to drive their stakes into firmer economic 
ground far away from telecommunications.

Communications networks have a more important job than generating return on 
investment --- their value comes from their connectivity and from the 
services they enable.

Therefore, the best network delivers bits in the largest volumes at the 
fastest speeds.

In addition, the best network is the most open to new communications 
services; it closes off the fewest futures and elicits the most innovation.

As software engineers say, "Today's optimization is tomorrow's bottleneck."

Thus, the best network is a "stupid" network that does nothing but move 
bits.2 Only then is the network truly open to any and all services that 
want to use it, no matter how innovative or how unexpected.

The Paradox of the Best Network comes about because as a network gets 
stupider, connectivity becomes a commodity.

They know that implementing the new commodity network threatens the very 
basis of their business.

As a result of this simplicity, the Internet has proven to be the most 
scalable, most robust communications infrastructure humans have ever built.

The Internet's bits-are-bits simplicity even threatens to turn their cash 
cow --- voice telephony --- into something anyone can do just by installing 
simple software onto an everyday PC.

The paradox means that companies that run the old, closed, special-purpose 
telephone network have an unfit business model for running the new network.

These promise every home more bandwidth than a medium sized town uses for 
all of its conventional telephony --- for about the price of a monthly bus 
pass.

These groups have already called in the lawyers and lobbyists to protect 
their current business models.

It will boost the economy, open global markets, and make us better informed 
citizens, customers and business people.

Left to itself, the market would favor larger network owners both because 
they benefit from economies of scale (the more connections you provide, the 
lower each connection costs) and because they have financial resources to 
withstand the low operating margins of a commoditized market.


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