Industry Threatened by Innovation at the 'Edge'?

penciling_in writes "In an article on CircleID, Bob Frankston, best known as the co-developer of the legendary VisiCalc and Lotus Express, shares his concern regarding industries desperate effort to control 'the edge' -- VoIP, P2P, Video on Demand... 'The commoditization of the transport is making it increasingly difficult to make money just because you own the pipe. The cable industries have a long history of owning the content and demanding a share in companies whose signals they deign to carry. As gatekeepers they have the ability to command a high fee for passage. The problem is that the scarcity is going away and with the shift to narrowcasting (as in Video on Demand) there is no scarcity. Instead they must own the content themselves if they are to retain any advantage. The Comcast/Disney issue (see: Comcast Family Protects Power) is portrayed as a media consolidation and convergence but that doesn't make sense. With transport becoming increasingly abundant it is easier for new players to enter the market and we should see increasing divergence once millions of people can experiment with new ideas.'"

Comments

More generic article of him

[Reinout]

He's got a more generic article about what he means with "edge". It looks to have a bit more generic reading value than the article referenced here on slashdot.

Reinout

Architectual Principals of the Internet

[anti-NAT]

RFC 1958 - Architectural Principles of the Internet

that's a different topic

[sacrilicious]

He forgot to mention RIAA/MPAA's attempts to control the very way we can use their products after we legally purchase and pay for them.

It's not that he forgot, it's that this topic actually doesn't fall into the domain he's discussing. He's talking about re-conceptualizing the end-to-end substrate of the internet, and hinting at some simple technical protocols/implementations to accompany and bolster such a shift in conceptualization. The goal of this shift is to enable innovation again. This does have some similarities to the topic you suggest, but only to the extent that there are technical and legal issues, and that big companies want more money at the expense of the public... which pretty much includes just about everything.

Re:common sense people

[deemon_ru]

>> Profitable industries and large conglomerates >>suffer from insane amounts of inertia. Suffer they do not - they enjoy it, and try to extend it by any means possible, as this allows them to keep thir profits. - And for how long have you been suffering from those erotic nightmares? - Suffering? Oh no, I enjoy them very much!

Re:common sense people

[Jim Starx]

The FSF attempts to control the way I can use the source code of GPL programs I obtain in the same way that the RIAA attempts to control their artists copyrighted materials.

How in the world is "we gave you this for free, you have to extend that same curtesy to others" even in the same ballpark as "you are not allowed to safeguard your property, if it breaks you'll just have to buy it from us again"...??

Both are control's, that much is true. But that's like comparing a murderer with a firefighter just because both wield an axe. CD's don't come with a license agreement that says you can do this... you can't do this... you can do this under these circumstances... etc. The FSF uses licenses which are openly available to read before you use the product, the RIAA uses legal mauvering and threats after the fact and it uses those techniques to control actions that have been determined by law to be legal! If I want to make a copy of my cd in case the original gets scratched it's my right to do that and when I bought that CD I damn sure never agreed to a license that said I couldn't.

Re:Article raises an interesting question.

[ComputerSlicer23]

Hmmm, you appear to be ignorant of the facts (no disrespect). Unfettered access to the internet, is a series of red tape issues that must be traversed. You can't get service to the Internet without some type of ISP. All but the largest ISP's have a transit provider which is for all intents and purposes, their ISP.

So if you really want your own access to the Internet, where you are in control of as much as you can be without having an international network, these are the steps:

First, you have to aquire IP addresses. This used to be a relatively simple process (or so I'm told). You can either get them from the people who give you connectivity (read: your ISP).

However, you say, we don't have an ISP. So we have to go get them from the source. So, you'll have to get them from one of the regional IP providers. In this case, it'd be ARIN (in North America at least). You can pick them up for the bargin basement price of $20K for a /20 (2^12 = 4096). Oh, and part of the paperwork is to prove you'll use it all.

Actually, after poking around, I've found that is the route you have to go if you are an actual ISP. It appears you can apply directly for IP's yourself. For a /24, that'll cost $2,500, plus an additional $100/year. If you want to have the numbers be publically routable, you'll probably want an AS number ($500 initial fee, plus $100/year). You can apply for these, buy you need a pretty good reason it appears, all of which must be justified periodically on why you get to keep the IP's. Also note, that these IP's are very likely to be filtered by large ISP's, because the routing table is getting too big, so they just drop routes that are for too small a block of addresses. So there will be significant parts of the Internet that can't get to you.

Now, you have IP's reserved especially for you. However, you have to actually get get physical access to someone or something that will allow you to connect to the Internet. Most people do this by an ISP. However, that again is out in this case. So, now, you have to setup a peering agreement with someone.

Essentially, a peering agreement is a deal where several groups throw in together, and line of physical data lines to some one else on the internet. They create a Point of Presense (PoP) where that data line is terminated. Each group gets access to this PoP to get connected to the Internet at large. Now, they all agree to pay the fees associated with the lines. One of which is to pay the company that owns the line (unless they paid to have it buried). They have to pay for the physical space that houses the equipment. They also have to pay the entity at the other end of the line.

That entity is the PoP's ISP. Normally, in this case they are referred to as a "Transit Provider", as opposed to an ISP. The fees associated with this are contractually drawn up by the entity you are connecting to. Normally, it's done by the byte, or by a threshhold of bandwidth utilization.

If really big transit providers (Tier 1 ISP's) construct a peering point, generally no money changes hands. However, at this point, you are an ISP to other large ISP's, as opposed to having one.

In the end, unless you are an ISP (and have a global worldwide network), you MUST have an ISP. It might be a no frills, IP transit only arrangment. However, in the end, you must have an ISP. Unless you can convince someone who currently has access to the Internet to lop off some numbers and give them to you. However, they are still the entity providing you Transit, and in some sense are your ISP.

Where I work, we have UUNet (WorldCom) as our ISP. They are the have the single largest network in the world. They give us unfettered access to the internet, but they are still an ISP. They give us a block of 128 IP addresses, and we have T1 connectivity for about $1,200/month (roughly, between them and the phone company). Technically speaking, we setup a peering agreement with UU

In fact,...

[WindBourne]

Disney should do a "way out west" start-up. Way out West goes into communities and does a modified Block-based greenbox with fiber to the home. Then they allow up to 50 other companies to install Fiber with content to the greenbox (or to use their CO). This minimizes the monopoly and creates a true competition. If Disney takes this approach, they will be able to take away all much ot the territory from Comcast.

Remember, Comcast has monopoly licenses that come up for renewal almost monthly.

Re:Just fucking do it.

[drinkypoo]

CDs are a bad example because they are legal to copy for backup or in order to put them on a different type of media for your use - At least, they are today. DVDs on the other hand, there is no legal way to back them up, due to the DMCA. So it's a valid argument in spite of your counterexample. What you are doing is perfectly legal in the US, but copying a DVD is not. Let's also not forget region coding, which some might say is anticompetitive.