Hub to get early look at next-level Web link ... AKA, the past all over again

[David Farber <dave () farber net>]

Begin forwarded message:

From: "Bob Frankston" <Bob19-0501 () bobf frankston com>
Date: August 13, 2009 3:25:44 PM EDT
To: "Prof. David J. J Farber" <dave () farber net>
Cc: "'Dewayne Hendricks'" <dewayne () warpspeed com>,  
<oia () lists bway net>, "Hiawatha Bray" <h_bray () globe com>
Subject: Hub to get early look at next-level Web link ... AKA, the  
past all over again

http://www.boston.com/business/technology/articles/2009/08/13/in_test_of_4g_network_hub_to_get_early_look_at_next_level_web_link/
Perhaps the headline is most telling, note that it refers to the Web  
rather than the Internet. But that’s not the reporter’s decision.  
Still, it is a reminder of the basic confusion between infrastructure  
and services and we all suffer from the lack of this vital  
infrastructure. It’s similar to Hiawatha’s recent story in the Boston  
Globe Magazine about Brian Worobey’s effort to provide ambient  
connectivity to Boston. It was framed in terms of being another  
service network rather than an opportunity to provide basic  
infrastructure. Shouldn’t the city of Boston want connectivity for its  
own use – like fire monitoring? The idea of a separate network for  
each purpose is like building a separate road system for each purpose.

I’m reminded of reading the ISDN tariff filings in the 1980’s – the  
basic pricing strategy was to charge a high price for high valued  
applications. The claim was that the carriers could do that because  
they could find people willing to pay. One result was the utter  
failure of ISDN in the US – people instead we stayed with dial up  
analog modems that could take advantage of the zero marginal cost of  
local infrastructure. It’s where innovation went to the point that  
dialup became competitive with ISDN by the late 1990’s.

The pricing scheme continues in the tradition of what I call “lottery  
pricing”. If I might want to get one high speed connection during a  
month I need to enroll in a multiyear 3G plan today. But it doesn’t  
make sense to charge for the bits because the number of bits varies so  
much. Ultimately the problem is that we have a high (I argue  
unnecessarily high) capital cost that is amortized as per an arbitrary  
business model. Yet if we simply paid for it once we’d have abundant  
capacity at zero marginal cost, AKA infrastructure.

The failure to provide infrastructure becomes apparent if we think  
about the inability to communicate emergency services without having a  
cellular plan. Some enable cellular systems to support calls to E911  
as a special case even if you don’t have an account but you still have  
the right equipment and not be in a dead zone. But would a  
communicating pacemaker doing status reports qualify for such a  
service? How will you “prove” the particular call is vital if you are  
communicating directly with a monitoring service of your choice rather  
than being relayed through the obsolescent E911 human relays? Of  
course I’ve already pointed out other problems – such as the inability  
to extend coverage. Perhaps femtocells could’ve helped but they seem  
to have disappeared from the market.

Note that the news story on the pacemakers mentions that such devices  
have their own frequency – again a frequency for each application? The  
so-called Smart-Grid is another example. Something as simple as  
reading values from meters so we can manage energy within our homes  
and so that the companies supplying power (be it gas or electricity)  
can measure using should be trivially easy. Yet each such system seems  
to require a separate infrastructure. Why?

In theory shouldn’t wireless connectivity be less expensive than wired  
given that we don’t need to run fibers hither and yon and we don’t  
need to run fibers to each and every apartment in an MDU (Multi-unit- 
dwelling, AKA apartment house)? So why isn’t this technology  
competitive? Why is wireless connectivity treated as a premium  
service? If Verizon owns both fibers and radio towers why not treat  
them as a single unit and greatly reduces costs while greatly  
increasing capacity?

The problem is in the funding or billing model – trying to contain the  
bits into billable paths. You can still do that by making wired/ 
wireless common infrastructure by using PPoE – Point to Point over  
Ethernet or over any infrastructure (PPoX?). PPoE was created so that  
you could get wires from your phone or cable company and use that to  
reach a connection to the Internet provided by another company.

Using PPOE you can get billing from a provider while also getting the  
benefits of a common infrastructure. MDUs can avoid the expensive of  
multiple “home-run” connections and instead share a common network  
while tenants can choose any carrier they want. But PPoE failed  
because it didn’t make sense to have two Internets – one that you just  
used to get to another. Perhaps a bigger reason is that if you follow  
the implications it becomes apparent that the common infrastructure is  
the Internet. Today the carriers spend billions and billions and  
billions just to give the appearance that they are providing a  
valuable service – the Internet out there.

Once we realize that the common infrastructure, or bit commons, is not  
just the Web but the Internet as infrastructure then we would use it  
for municipal services too and save a lot more money while providing  
far better services. Instead of a rickety E911 system we’d have real  
support before emergencies become emergencies. Your pacemaker would  
alert your physician before you are stricken – prevention and  
monitoring would have a major impact on the cost of healthcare while  
improving the quality of life. And that’s just one of many examples.

So why do we insist on doing harm by maintaining a system that harks  
back the heyday of railroads -- a system that gives carriers veto  
power over innovation and limits our opportunities? Why indeed? In  
fact it’s worse – the more I read about the so-called Smart Grid the  
more I find it strange since it seems to be more about building yet  
another fiber infrastructure and very little about energy management.

No wonder I find a story about the future glories of being beholden to  
providers so depressing. 4G – another generation held hostage?




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