SMART Letter #70
Knowing the Cows from the Grass
April 17, 2002
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SMART Letter #70 -- April 17, 2002
Copyright 2002 by David S. Isenberg
isen.com -- "a hole in the ground"
isen@isen.com -- http://isen.com/ -- 1-888-isen-com
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CONTENTS
> Quote of Note: Francois Menard defines Broadband
> Knowing the Cows from the Grass
> Smart Remarks from SMART People:
> + Stephen Kamman on Athiests and Libertarians
> + George Gilder on the Techno-Left
> + Jock Gill on democrats.com
> + Vint Cerf on the separation of TCP and IP
> + Andrew Odlyzko on Flat-Rate Local Calling
> Conferences on my Calendar
> Copyright Notice, Administrivia
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Quote of Note: Francois Menard defines Broadband:
"Broadband is defined by the ability of the end-user
to change transmission equipment at the pace of
technology improvements."
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Knowing the Cows from the Grass
by David S. Isenberg
When Isenberg edits what Isenberg writes, sometimes really
bad bloopers get by. In SMART Letter # 69 "former" and
"latter" were mixed up as follows: "separate content from
connectivity by technology and by law -- run the former as
a common good (and engine of wealth creation) and the
latter as a marketplace." That's like saying the cows are
green and the grass goes Moo. My damn fool editor didn't
catch it [and neither did the idiot writer -- ed.].
Writer and editor jointly tender thanks to seven SMART
readers who told us about this faux pas. We hope that
nobody thought what we wrote was what we meant. But
because it is incredibly important to keep content and
conduit separate, especially these days, let us restate:
There is a scenario in which fundamental connectivity --
rights of way, poles, conduits, wires, fibers, and even the
electromagnetic spectrum -- could be treated as common
goods. This is an extreme view, but that's what scenarios
are supposed to be. The opposite (extreme) scenario would
have totally deregulated connectivity, with poles from
eight companies cluttering up both sides of the street,
with digging for new conduit everywhere, with enough
electromagnetic radiation to fry an egg without an antenna.
Once we have the extremes staked out, we can follow my
statistics teacher's dictum: "Interpolation is better than
extrapolation." Indeed, we are living at neither extreme.
Today we tend to see more symptoms of a single integrated
infrastructure -- a more regulated world. If we were going
the other way, we'd tend to see more multi-party,
competitive situations, which would be requisite to a free
marketplace.
There are good reasons for a free marketplace. So are
there good reasons for a common infrastructure. We love
open competition, but we don't want to thread our way among
competitive telephone poles as we drive down the street.
And we'd like multiple wireless connections, but we don't
want to play the game of out-amplify-thy-neighbor, and we
have other means for frying eggs.
Most importantly, while we like multiple infrastructures
because they provide redundancy (and, at least
theoretically, a marketplace), we also like low unit costs
that common shared infrastructure brings. (Imagine a road
system only for Chevys, with another freeway system
alongside it only for Toyotas, and a third set of roadways
exclusively for DaimlerChryslers. Each road would have
less traffic (and road-car synergies could be exploited to
optimize each separate system!) but the road budget might
become larger than the gross national product, an engine of
wealth-destruction.)
Fortunately, there is some degree of shared infrastructure.
A single telephone pole can carry wires for electricity and
telephone service, cable for TV and fiber for infinite-
speed, zero-latency Internet connectivity. The same pole
could also support some wireless access points. A single
slice of spectrum can carry multiple independent signals
from multiple independent sources. And a single fiber
could carry all the communications services a household (or
a nation) might need. It's the shared common
infrastructure, stupid.
Sharing common infrastructures requires rules, and
conventions for following them. These conventions need not
be burdensome -- for example, we stop at red lights.
Regulation as such is not a problem. Wise regulation, that
is, regulation that does not confuse conduit and content.
Wise regulation does not confuse conduit and content the
way the FCC's sorry Notice of Proposed Rulemaking NPRM 02-
33 does (see http://www.cybertelecom.org/ci/computerv.htm).
I would say it is an evil NPRM, but it is too confused to
be evil. It speaks of broadband as if it were a platform,
as if the connectivity were the application. It reads as
if the cows and the grass are green and go Moo and give
milk and need mowing.
If so-called "broadband" becomes a vertically integrated
platform, the engines of innovation will grind to a halt.
Communications will be powered by grotesque monopolous
monsters. There's nothing wrong with monopolies --
monopolies that do not abuse their customers, that is.
Remember, the Bell System was a huge success -- for most of
its life, the United States had the best telephone system
in the world. If we are to have monopolies, let's go in
with our eyes open. And let's make sure that we keep
conduit separate from content.
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Smart Remarks from SMART People
Stephen Kamman on Athiests and Libertarians
"There are no atheists in a foxhole, and there are no
libertarians in a recession."
Stephen Kamman, Telecom Equipment Analyst, CIBC World
Markets
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George Gilder on the Techno-Left
[Speaking of regulations and marketplaces, George Gilder
responded to SMART Letter #69 via email as follows:]
"The serious issue, which I think blinds Silicon Valley
and you a bit as well, is inviting government into the
fray. My understanding of government is that is almost
always support the past -- the leviathan RBOCs and long
distance players with their armies of lobbyists and
pols. You can get Washington to support some research
project or procurement . . . but keep them out
of any further regulation or subsidy of local loop
players, or attempt [to] force RBOC and cable equal
access and other interventions.
"All your disparagement of supposed free market
absolutism concords fully with the constant refrain of
the techno-left as it demands quixotic government local
loop homestead acts and the like and ignores the fact
that the current markets are anything but free. Only
technology can blast them open for Narad, Soma, Terabeam
and the rest."
[Gilder is right to observe that current markets are
anything but free. Why, then, does Gilder want to "keep
[government] out of any further regulation." Does he like
government regulation the way it is? Maybe keeping things
the way they are is what being a Conservative is all about.
He's also right that someday (decades? centuries?)
technology will triumph. In the here and now (years to
centuries) government policy matters. -- David I]
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Jock Gill on democrats.com
[Jock Gill responds to SMART Letter #69:]
"I agree with your: 'The Democrats aren't any better
friends of the new network than the other party.' In
fact, I think we should ask ALL politicians what their
'network-of-the-future' platform plank is.
"It is an error to suggest Democrats dot com speaks for
all Democrats. Nobody does. The Democrats are infamous
for their multiple voices, which too often do not sing
in harmony. Democrats dot com addresses what it calls
'Aggressive Progressives'.
"I find it particularly wondrous that you assert that I
support Hollings and/or Dingell in their repressive
legislation [aimed at saving] failed business models via
legislation. Please let me know how you reached a
conclusion 180 degrees from the truth. Since I do not
mention this in my essay, nor did you ever ask me my
position on this legislation, I have no idea of how you
came to your conclusion. I do have plenty of email to
friends in DC voicing my strong opposition."
[What is a Democrat but somebody who buys the policies of
the Democratic Party? I'm pleased that Jock disavows the
destructive dealings of his own party members. I'm tickled
that he wants us to expect his party to speak with multiple
discordant voices. Forget the old names, the political
parties have degenerated into the "Fuzzy Message Party"
(the FMP) and the "Win at any Cost Party" (the WAAC). This
may be a foxhole, but I'm still an atheist. -- David I]
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[Vint Cerf responded to clarify the history of TCP and IP
that SMART Letter #69 got partly right:]
"We actually started with TCP (IP didn't exist except
combined with TCP) in the first draft of the design in
1972/74. After a couple of iterations we realized we
needed to separate IP and TCP and did so around 1977/78.
Part of the reason was precisely that some applications
cared a lot more about low delay than high reliability
and sequenced delivery.
"You are quite right that we did NOT want to build into
the network any deep assumptions about applications
fearing our limited vision would constrain the network
in decades to come as new possibilities at the edges
arose."
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Andrew Odlyzko on Flat-Rate Local Calling
[Andrew Odlyzko wrote in to barber a few wild-haired points
in SMART Letter #69:]
"You write:
'Then U.S. government policy made a sharp distinction
between basic and enhanced telecom services; early
ISPs were helped immeasurably because Internet
access was classified as an enhanced service.
That's benign, but it is not neglect. Also, the
United States has a policy of unmeasured local
telecom service -- the absence of per-minute charges
was another positive policy that enhanced and
advanced United States Internet leadership.'
"The first part was indeed a great policy decision.
However, the last part is more than a little misleading.
Flat rates for residential local calling were not the
result of a 'positive policy,' but an accidental
byproduct of the competition between the Bell System and
the independent phone companies a century ago. I cover
this in 'The history of communications and its
implications for the Internet,'
.
"At that time there were no 'responsible' experts in
industry or government that had anything kind to say
about flat rates. But the public wanted them, and
because of the competition, was able to get them. It's
a fascinating piece of history that is all too little
known."
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CONFERENCES ON MY CALENDAR
April 18, 2002. Sioux Falls SD. MIDnet/GPN Spring
Networking Conference. If you've never been to Sioux Falls,
you're in for a middle-American data-networking treat.
Sioux Falls is a major node on the network, home to
Citibank's credit card operations, to LodgeNet, the second
largest U.S. provider of entertainment and information
services to hotels and motels, and to Northwestern
Corporation, a multi-glomerate as solid as the Midwest that
(far as I can tell) doesn't use fancy accounting and still
makes honest money. MIDnet is a small non-profit
organization that promotes networking in the Midwest
thought grants, meetings like this one, and other means.
GPN, the Great Plains Network, is the meeting's co-sponsor.
GPN operates a regional internetwork and provides
connectivity to Internet2. For more info, see
http://www.midnetinc.org/conferences.html.
May 21-23, 2002. Boston. Connectivity 2002. A pulver.com
celebration of networks so abundant that they will carry
everything effortlessly. For more information see
http://pulver.com/connectivity2002 or contact Daniel
Berninger, 631-547-0800.
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part of it, is permitted for non-commercial purposes,
provided that the two lines below are reproduced with it:
Copyright 2002 by David S. Isenberg
isen@isen.com -- http://isen.com/ -- 1-888-isen-com
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