more on Lucky warns of end-user broadband expectations

[Dave Farber <dave () farber net>]

Delivered-To: dfarber+ () ux13 sp cs cmu edu
Date: Sun, 04 Apr 2004 13:03:17 -0700
From: DV Henkel-Wallace <gumby () henkel-wallace org>
Subject: Re: [IP] Lucky warns of end-user broadband expectations
To: dave () farber net

On 04 Apr, 2004, at 06:41, Dave Farber wrote:

> Date: Sat, 03 Apr 2004 16:37:25 -0800
> From: Dewayne Hendricks <dewayne () warpspeed com>
>
> Lucky warns of end-user broadband expectations
>  By  Loring Wirbel  , EE Times
>
>  Lucky said that even though he spent his career in the telephony realm 
> dominated by a centralized Advanced Intelligent Network, he believed in 
> the inevitability of a dumb central fabric and intelligent end nodes. The 
> overall costs may be more in a connectionless packet-switched network, he 
> said, but the empowerment provided to end users makes IP a better system 
> " provided end users realize that some costs must be borne by users and 
> service providers to maintain backbones of the system.

I'm glad Lucky has taken the plunge and embraced the dumb network (but then 
again, he's a really smart guy).  What pains me is that there is no 
discussion of funding packet transport the way we fund the streets: as a 
(literally) common carrier public resource.

I think it's due to an unfortunate confluence of ideologies: the federal 
parties don't want to spend money on infrastructure and have a bias to 
"letting the market decide" even when it's inappropriate; the techies are 
afraid that government spending must mean interference.

But the reality is that the public streets are open to everyone: 
80-year-old grannies, teen-agers, terrorists and law-abiding citizens.
You choose your vehicle, you choose what to put in it and you choose where 
you drive it and by what route.  _They_ don't get built as private efforts 
except in very rare cases.

Packet transport has turned into a classic externality, entirely 
appropriate for government funding and development.  It's a shame that 
municipal efforts (like in my own Palo Alto) to build public Internet 
infrastructure are heavily resisted by entrenched interests and ideologues.

-d

PS: People who haven't heard of Wirbel should read his stuff.  His opinion 
pieces in EE times are usually insightful and right on the mark.


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