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Own the Last Mile
jonabbey writes "Robert X. Cringely's most recent column advocates a radical solution to the network neutrality thicket: create our own last mile infrastructure, rather than paying the telcos and cable companies to use our bandwidth as a lever. From the article: "A model in which the infrastructure is paid for as infrastructure -- privately, locally, nationally, and internationally can create a true marketplace in which the incentives are aligned. Instead of having the strange phenomenon of carriers spending billions and then arguing that they deserve to be paid, we'd have them bidding on contracts to install and/or maintain connectivity to a marketplace that is buying capacity and making it available so value can be created without having to be captured within the network and thus taken out of the economy."
As optimist as this article is (and adds a nice bashing of Microsoft that should please this crowd), it fails to take in account the other side of the telecomms strategy for "metering the internet". There has been a legislative push to throw so many roadblocks against municipal broadband projects at both the state and federal level, often citing "anticompetive environment" as a justification against them.
Considering the virtual monopoly positions held by most providers in their areas of services, it is apparent they have seen the potential (and threat) of municipal broadband projects to their mid and long term plans for the internet.
"Owning the last mile" is a beautiful vision and expresses the American dream in the digital age...unless you they have already outlawed it in your area.
"To travel the paths of human imagination you have to be willing to unlearn all you know"
The internet is a huge international resource, I never understood why a few monopoly-prone corporations were put in charge of those last few miles anyway
The internet is a collection of networks. "It" doesn't exist, per se. We only see it as a system because it behaves as one - but it's not like it's some natural resource that copper providers are keeping us from.
In most cases, the companies that have copper (telephone lines for dial-up or DSL, or coaxial cable for TV) were doing that before broadband to your house was even a consideration. They weren't "put in charge" of the last few miles, they invested a ton of money to string up untold miles of cable all over the place so that they could, over the long term, make money by charging people to use what they'd just spent that money installing. Hauling data over that same infrastucture came later, usually long after some areas were already wired up.
Now, I live in a 20-yeard old neighborhood, and I've got my choice of two cable providers, two telcos, and now a fiber provider. They've all pulled their own buried conduis through the area, and will drop off their service right at the wall of my house. They're competing viciously for my bundled bandwith/cable/phone dollars. I haven't really even bothered to evaluate the wireless options since that's less appealing to me.
But the main thing is that your local telco and cable weren't put in charge of your internet connection - they were the ones that already had the infrastructure in place. A completely new pipe to your house, provided by someone else (including yourself) is very, very expensive - you need trucks, utility permits, labor, materials, and something to plug it all into. The math rarely makes sense unless you know you're making a long-term committment. Phone companies figure they are, since even if you move away, the odds are good that the next person at that address will also want the same service. That stability is what made it worth their investment to put that copper there in the first place - and it usually takes years and years of your paying the phone bill to offset what they paid to put it there.
Don't disappoint your bird dog. Go to the range.
"A completely new pipe to your house, provided by someone else (including yourself) is very, very expensive"
Yet we manage to accomplish more or less exactly the same thing with road infrastructure, without having five companies running their own roads to every house, then charging the house owners for access.
It's not that hard to design a system after that model, with specific interchange points on a local level.
...see how wrong they where?
...well..duh...Morse code. Of course, morse code....slow as it is - isn't practical for a world-wide-wireless network with todays demands for broadband and hight troughput, but the Radioamateurs are the ones that carry the solution for nearly every wireless innovation in the world. Who's the first to try out new untested stuff? Radio amateurs, who's the first to utilize it all before it becomes mainstream? Who's do YOU know that communicates today digitally via their own satellites? You may not know anyone - but they're radioamateurs and they're in this world - way ahead as usual - perhaps not old "grandpappy HAM-operator from-way-back" but the legacy he and so many others carried on - lives in us - the younger generation who grew up with bread-board electronics and became engineers, technicians...and yes.. radio amateurs - your average radio-shack hobbyist. You may not know it - even though radio-shack and the likes all over the planet are phasing out old-style electronics - we're still active and inventive.
...Vhf...medium bandwidth ...and UHF to microwave have Mega to Gigabit capability, now we're talking, right?
I'm a radio amateur, don't know what that is? Look up ARRL on Google and educate yourself.
The idea of making an international network predates the Internet, actually way back in time when Samuel Morse invented
Fancy - a little history and a waving finger, but where does that place us? Well - you brought it up to the public and you read it, participated in it - a suggestion to create our own world wide intranet. I say it's a GREAT idea, not new as you can read from this and history - but is it feasible? Well - turn to radioamateurs, call out NOW and get cracking! (and no - that's not cracking, it's a metaphor for get busy!)
Things as they are now:
A world wide wireless Ad-Hoc network. More and more mainboards plus laptops come with wireless adaptors built right in, as you may know already - these are radio transmitters & receivers. A little engineering and these can be modified to support such an idea, heck....you can even use it today without modifying anything but software.
In the radio-amateur world we have something called Packet-Radio. Packet radio can be hideously slow and it can also be really fast, it all depends on the same things YOU depend on...bandwith....and the actual band. A little radio theory for you all: The short wave bands are great for reaching long distances and a relatively reliable connection that can last for hours - worldwide! The shortwave bands shortcomings is that they're not carrying a lot of bandwidth for data usage so we need to be creative. For 20 years ago - no one would have guessed that you could transmit digital Hifi-Stereo radio streams via the shortwave band in a few kilohertz bandwith, but you can - look it up on Google - it's called DRM (no Not Digital Rights Management) But Digital Radio Mondale. This shows you how creative you can get being a radio amateur engineer - and we haven't reached the limits there yet. Now for the more interesting bands - VHF and UHF. These bands doesn't reach very far, but we have higher bandwidth capabilities and it could potentially sport speeds up to an average 56 K modem. 56 K is not very fast, but the good thing about radio is that you can be several users onto several servers using the same frequency but far away from each other...thus you could in fact share a 2 mbit "wireless" line just using packet radio alone because all users wont be onto that same 56K relay! And best of all - it's free, you need a radio-amateur license though.
Ok, 56 K not enough for you even if it's free? How about microwaves? yes - thats what you already use today with your existing wireless equipment - yes even as hight as 5 ghz. If you read my post so far, then you probably have guessed that the microwave distance will be even less...shortwave reaches far..but have low bandwidth
Truth is - it's alre
What this world is coming to - is for you and me to decide.