[governance] Re: The Internet (as we know it) can never be "private"

[Roland Perry]

In message 
<CAJwbTiBXEEb7OEcO89nkTW8sOoxS2ZbFBbN-SVat-pXGzE7u_w at mail.gmail.com>, at 
19:44:01 on Sun, 17 Jul 2011, Salanieta T. Tamanikaiwaimaro 
<salanieta.tamanikaiwaimaro at gmail.com> writes
>You probably have read this already but I invite you to read the
>article below:
> Esmat, B and Fernandez ,J.  International Internet Connections Costs 
>
>in Reforming Internet Governance (Perspectives 
>from the Working Group on Internet Governance (WGIG)) 

http://www.wgig.org/docs/book/Baher_Esmat_and_Juan_Fern%C3%A1ndez%20.pdf

I'm glad it agrees with me that it's the subscribers who pay (not the 
ISPs) but it goes on to talk about the completely broken analogy with 
telecoms half circuits. I'm very familiar with all of that, having paid 
something like half a million dollars a year to lease a line from UK to 
New York when I first set up an ISP in about 1995. I also sat on a 
subgroup which fed into the ITU's D.50 report.

I won't further expand on this here, other than to say that the 
underlying issues were covered when I said "there's a need for bold 
investment, when it comes to laying new International connectivity". 
Half-circuits are a way of recovering the costs of having laid cables in 
the past, through a "pay as you use" strategy. People forget that using 
half-circuits to provide Internet connectivity is using the previous 
(telephony) technology to try to deliver the new (Internet) product. 
It's bound not to be an optimal way of doing it - you need to lay new 
connectivity and have a new paradigm.

Meanwhile, I wish I could buy "half air fares" where the Kenyan 
organisers pay half my costs to fly from London to Nairobi!

Roland.

>On Sun, Jul 17, 2011 at 7:32 PM, Roland Perry <roland at internetpolicyagency.com> wrote:
>  In message <CAJwbTiCFE9FnBR3Nhnj+5oanRptRH1K=RL6Yuw0RQjxQxe1aNQ  @mail.gmail.com>, at 09:12:02 on Sun, 17 Jul 2011, Salanieta T.
>  Tamanikaiwaimaro <salanieta.tamanikaiwaimaro at gmail.com> writes
>
>
>>    Question
>
>>    Why is it that when someone from Kenya emails someone from the
>>    US, the ISP in Kenya pays?
>
>>    Why is that when someone from the US emails someone from Kenya,
>>    the ISP in Kenya still pays
>
>
>  Firstly, it would the ISP customer who is paying (through their
>  subscriptions).
>
>  Secondly, we must examine what they are paying *for*. At the most
>  basic level it's "a connection to the Internet". (And emails are
>  sent and received over that connection).
>
>  So what is "the Internet"? It's a set of interconnected networks.
>
>  What the customer is therefore paying for is his ISP to operate the
>  'local' network *plus* establish and maintain the interconnects with
>  other networks.
>
>  For historical reasons, the early *international* interconnects were
>  on the East and West coast of the USA. So an ISP customer in Chicago
>  will be at the very least paying for his ISP to haul the traffic
>  halfway across the USA.
>
>  As time went on, and there was more traffic in places like Europe,
>  ISPs built additional interconnects that were cheaper for them. So
>  an ISP customer in Paris might only pay for his ISP to operate the
>  network inside France (to exchange emails with other Frenchmen,
>  entirely at the cost of the French) plus an Interconnect to London,
>  Amsterdam or Frakkfurt; rather than "plus an Interconnect to New
>  York".
>
>  Unfortunately, the regulatory regime in some parts of the world made
>  it very difficult to establish new local interconnects, let alone
>  international ones. And to some extent the users in those areas are
>  "paying" for that.
>
>  There's also an economy of scale, and a need for bold investment,
>  when it comes to laying new International connectivity.
>
>  So the answer to your question is "no, the user in Kenya isn't
>  paying for the emails in both directions, they are paying for their
>  local connectivity plus a share of the connectivity to an
>  International hub. The user in the USA is paying exactly the same.
>  --
>  Roland Perry
>
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>
>--
>Sala
> 
>"Stillness in the midst of the noise".
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-- 
Roland Perry
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