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100 Years Ago, No Free Broadband Pneumatic Tubes
TheSync writes "The Division of Labour blog spotlights a report written 100 years ago by a commission appointed by the Postmaster General, that came to the conclusion: 'That it is not feasible and desirable at the present time for the Government to purchase, to install, or to operate pneumatic tubes.' Here is a scan of the original NYTimes article. If only we had gotten the free government Intertubes in 1908!"
Strictly speaking, using a monopoly to abuse stifle competition or innovation is bad, monopolies themselves are acceptable and common.
The US Mail service doesn't have a monopoly, just ask Fedex Ground, and nether would a publicly-owned infrastructure either. It just sets a minimum standard of service. You're free to start Theaveng's Letter Service tomorrow, but it has to be either as reliable and cheap as the USPS, or charge more and compete on features.
Don't blame me, I voted for Baltar.
then the last mile should belong to the homeowner.
The last mile is going to be a monopoly,
Why? Just because you cannot think of a way?
From Wikipedia:
Technical analysis
Stevens's speech was analyzed by Princeton computer science professor Edward Felten, who said that he disagreed with Stevens's argument but felt that the language "series of tubes" was entirely reasonable as a non-technical explanation given off-the-cuff in a meeting.[12]
The term pipe is a commonly used idiom to refer to a data connection, with pipe diameter being analogous to bandwidth or throughput.[13] For instance, high-bandwidth connections are often referred to as "fat pipes."
Most routers use a data structure called a queue to buffer packets.[14] When packets arrive more quickly than can be forwarded, the router will hold the packets in a queue until they can be sent on to the next router or be dropped.[15] On links that become congested, packets typically spend more time in the queue than they do actually moving down wires or optical fiber...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Series_of_tubes
I too disagree with Steven's argument. But people who jump on "tubes" often do not even know the concepts behind the analogy. In a lot of cases, the people that laugh at his comment are even less informed about the topic than Stevens.
I actually think that technology history is a very interesting topic.
For example, in 1684 Robert Hooke presented a scheme to the Royal Society for setting up lines of towers to relay semaphore signals over long distances. This was an eminently practical suggestion. In fact the Royal Navy in the following century developed the capability of coordinating complex land and sea operations using semaphore. Still it wasn't until over a hundred years later that an attempt was made to make a practical land based network. By that time, the first practical demonstrations of electrical telegraphy had already taken place. Electrical telegraphy was both cheaper and nearly 8x as fast. Once electrical telegraphy was possible, semaphore was doomed.
What's interesting about semaphore is that it is intrinsically low tech. It's most efficient with some kind of mechanical shutter system, but you can make do with a pair of flags. The Romans certainly had the engineering ability to connect their empire with a series of semaphore towers; the only thing wanting was the idea. You can imagine how history would have been different if it had occurred to them. At the very least, the slow and easily intercepted nature of semaphore might have lead to many computer science and cryptography ideas being discovered thousand of years earlier.
A pneumatic tube system, on the other hand, is only possible for a civilization that has at least stem engine technology. Such systems were unlikely to scale beyond local service in any case. It's an interesting concept, but not nearly as potentially revolutionary as semaphore might have been.
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
>>>The last mile is going to be a monopoly, whether it be water, sewer, cable, electricity, phone, or fiber.
Actually I have choice for my electricity and my phone and my natural gas. Likewise the internet is NOT a monopoly where I live. In my home I have multiple options:
(1) Dialup
(2) Comcast cable
(3) Suburban cable (they were first, Comcast arrived later and ran in parallel)
(4) Dish
(5) DirecTV
(6) HughesNet
(7) WildBlue
(8) DSL
(9) Verizon FiOS
Please stop saying internet is a monopoly, when evidence clearly shows it is not. I am Pro-Choice, and having many choices is better than having just one government monopoly.
FOX NEWS.com should be BANNED from television and internet. Have the Congress take it over and give us Truespeak.
>>>GP's point is that in many rural areas, commercial data providers simply aren't willing to come into the town and install data infrastructure.
Then pass a law that obligates Comcast to run cable internet, Verizon to run DSL, Dish Satellite to provide satellite internet, Sprint to provide cellular internet, to any customer who asks for it. We have similar laws for electricity and phone, so why not internet.
FOX NEWS.com should be BANNED from television and internet. Have the Congress take it over and give us Truespeak.
The Persian Empire had the fastest information infrastructures of it's time, while not with semaphore, they used loud shouting from tower to tower to transmit orders and news across the empire.
It is exceptionally rare to have a choice for electrical providers. Ditto for gas and cable. Probably 99% of the U.S. population is served by one or fewer telephone companies, one or fewer cable company, and one or fewer natural gas providers.
Also, your argument that DSL competes with FiOS is somewhat of a misnomer. Once you get FiOS, they cut your twisted pair. It is no longer possible to get DSL service at that location after that. And unless you have at least one CLEC providing DSL service in your area (outside of major cities, CLECs are rare), your DSL provider is the phone company, so those aren't really in competition at all.
Internet service tends towards a monopoly in all but the largest cities. In my hometown in Tennessee, there is exactly one provider of high speed service---the cable company---and there's rumor that they are on the verge of bankruptcy. No DSL service at that CO, no FiOS, nothing. That's pretty typical of small town America. At best, you have two, and a duopoly is every bit as bad as a monopoly. By contrast, if the municipality owns the lines and can lease them freely to multiple providers, the startup cost to provide service in a town becomes relatively small, and the tendency is to end up with five or six companies competing even in small markets. Why? Because the startup costs are low, and if a major provider starts charging too much, it suddenly becomes very feasible for somebody else to step in and start providing service. The same is not true if the company would have to lay hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of wire infrastructure just to get started.
Check out my sci-fi/humor trilogy at PatriotsBooks.
Why? Because pneumatic infosystems are "obviously" a silly idea? If you think that, you need to crack a book now and then. If you did, you'd know that pneumatic mail delivery was widely used in Europe from the late 19th century well into the 20th. (The Paris system didn't shut down until 1984!)
They were also widely used in the U.S. for internal business mail and similar stuff. Many large department stores used pneumatic systems instead of cash registers. The clerk put your money and bill into a tube, where it got sent up to the bookkeeping department, which sent back a receipt and your change. That's more cost effective than totaling out dozens of registers at the end of the day, and also minimized the amount of cash in places where it could be ripped off. Back in the 70s, there were still a few stores that used this system; it took the rise of networked POS systems and credit cards to kill it completely.
So the folks that wanted to build a national pneumatic system had some solid technology and experience to build on. Sure, they failed — but their failure is worth studying now that we're busy arguing about the best way to install a telecom infrastructure that's half as good as the ones in Asia.
There were optical telegraph towers in France in 1795. They had a network of 500 stations that covered much of the country, and used them for military communications for 70 years.
Nostalgia's not what it used to be.
No, it isn't a natural monopoly. It only seems that way because of lack of planning on cities part. The last mile should be a PIPE. No, not an internet connection that is called a pipe, but an honest to goodness hole through the ground pipe. The system should look a lot like a storm drain or sewer system. If you want to buy a service from Joe's home movie cable company, you should be able to have Joe's just pull a wire through the existing pipe to the larger main pipe, and all the way to their office where the video source comes from. Heck, if the city had data tubes, I could literally be on a neighborhood by having a line run from my house to my neighbors across the street. Of course, this would create MASSIVE competition, as the barrier of entry for a new cable company, phone provider or ISP would plummet.
No, the last mile is definitely not a natural monopoly.
Company A's gas is made by eco-friendly hippies. Company B's is made by raping cows but has great customer service and mails me barbecue jerky. I support the environment by buying A(or cow-raping customer service, whichever).
Both A & B put their gas into the network. I may be actually getting B's molecules, but since they put in the same quantity as their customers buy, it is a wash on whose you actually receive. I'm not paying for better molecules, I'm paying for service & business practices.
Ditto with the internet. The infrastructure company rolls out a massive pipe from a central location to all the homes and all the service providers hook up to that point. They provide internet transit to their customers from that point, you pay for the transit you need, the infrastructure company makes sure it's pipes are wider than the highest transit level provided. Same electrons between your house and the peering point, different services from there on out and business practices from the transit providers.
The only reason you have more than one wire now is because phone and cable started out as different industries. Once they are the same, like gas providers, you'll only have one wire.