more on Setting history straight: So, who really did invent the Internet?

[David Farber <dave () farber net>]

Begin forwarded message:

From: philipp schmidt <philipp () bridges org>
Date: May 4, 2005 6:00:45 AM EDT
To: dave () farber net
Subject: Re: [IP] more on Setting history straight: So, who really  
did invent the Internet?


The situation in Africa supports and extends Brad's point. For the  
majority of Africans the Internet has simply not arrived (regardless  
of who invented it when). In their "Halfway Proposition" paper, the  
African ISP Association AFRISPA argues that at the root of the  
problem lie "unfair" cost contracts that are in place between African  
networks and the international Internet backbone.



Halfway Proposition:

http://www.afrispa.org/Initiatives.htm
http://www.afrispa.org/HalfwayDocs/HalfwayProposition_Draft4.pdf



AIM

The Aim of the Halfway Proposition is to articulate the root causes  
of high connectivity costs in Africa and to map out a strategy of how  
to tackle the problem.


THE PROBLEM

Obtaining upstream connectivity requires African Internet Backbones  
(AISPs) to purchase bandwidth from International Backbone Providers  
(IBPs), which are largely network operators from within G8 countries.  
Typically 90% of an AISP's upstream cost is the physical link from  
them to the IBP's country and 10% is the cost of purchasing IP  
Bandwidth once they get there. Whether the service is purchased as a  
bundle or separately the AISP pays 100% of the International carrier  
to get from Africa to the IBP network and then 100% of the Internet  
bandwidth cost. This amounts to a reverse subsidy of IBP connectivity  
costs by AISPs.

(...)






> Begin forwarded message:
>
> From: Brad Templeton <btm () templetons com>
> Date: May 2, 2005 5:15:20 PM EDT
> To: Dave Farber <dave () farber net>
> Cc: mo () ccr org
> Subject: Re: [IP] more on Setting history straight: So, who really  
> did invent the Internet?
>
>
>
>
> > No, any comprehensive theory for "how the Internet came to be"  
> > must take
> > into account this very fundamental decentralization and the  
> > innovative
> > forces it unleashes.
>
> Mike's right in that the invention of the internet should not  
> necessarily
> be dated to the invention of packet switching or IP and TCP.
>
> I personally suggest that one of the magic ingredients which made the
> internet is what I call its cost contract.  In other words, a billing
> invention rather than a technological one.
>
> The internet cost contract is "I pay for my line to the midpoint, you
> pay for yours, and we don't account for the individual packets."
>
> I pay my half, you pay yours.
>
> This remarkable billing arrangement gave the illusion that the  
> internet
> was free.  People were paying for it but you could treat it like it  
> was
> largely free.   Other systems, including the X.25 network, and of  
> course
> the PSTN, tended to have usage based accounting.
>
> The internet grew because a flourish of people built strange and  
> interesting
> applications, and left them open to access by the outside world.  The
> early days involved everything from fishtank webcams to FTP  
> repositories of
> software to online communities talking about the technical and the  
> trivial.
>
> On a network where you paid for traffic, as soon as an application got
> popular, there would be a bill.   And a beancounter would get the bill
> and somebody would be called into an office to be asked, "Why do we  
> have
> a huge bill for people looking at camera images of our fishtank?"
> And it would have been shut down.   Likewise software repositories and
> much more.  Only what could be demonstrably financially justified  
> could
> have a good chance of thriving.
>
> It is from this that msggroup, and FTP, and USENET, and archie, and  
> gopher
> and eventually the WWW that people come to think of as "the  
> internet" grew.
>
> The ability to innovate at the edges is important, but the ability to
> play without accounting may have been even more important.
>
> Who invented this?  Well, some of it arose just as a product of being
> a research project where accounting wasn't the main concern.  Many
> research projects foster innovation with this formula.
>
> Who made it so that the model remained as the network grew to be a  
> going
> concern?   Possibly NSFNet and guys like Steve Wolfe, probably other
> decisions even earlier than that.
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> -------------------------------------
> You are subscribed as philipp () bridges org
> To manage your subscription, go to
>  http://v2.listbox.com/member/?listname=ip
>
> Archives at: http://www.interesting-people.org/archives/interesting- 
> people/



-------------------------------------
You are subscribed as lists-ip () insecure org
To manage your subscription, go to
 http://v2.listbox.com/member/?listname=ip

Archives at: http://www.interesting-people.org/archives/interesting-people/