[governance] The Impact of Changes in the Information Super-Highway

[Jim Fleming]

Some people may have been around when the U.S. constructed what is called
the Inter-State highway system. It was actually a defense-driven project
intended to
help people evacuate areas when invaded by people who some were sure were
about ready to parachute on to U.S. soil or crawl out of the ocean. The
reality
turned out to be that the Inter-State highway system became a source of
jobs,
political cronyism, and it changed the way many small towns evolved.

The Internet is following a similar evolution. People early in the game,
**think**
they have their driveway connected directly to a super-highway out front.
Some
actually do, and they may find that to be a disadvantage as the transport is
re-worked and evolved, with minimal impact to the traffic. One of the major
evolutions is to move people back, on to what some call Service Roads in
meat-space.
Those are the roads people see along the edge of super-highways. It may be
more
of an advantage to have you driveway on a Service Road than directly on the
super-highway because you can ALSO take advantage of local connections more
easily.

Local connections and local content may not be all that compelling at the
moment,
but it is rapidly growing. As it grows, people will discover they are
**better off**
with a variety of connections. This may be like a business with several
entrances
to their parking lot (or car park in some areas).

One of the early problems with the Inter-State highway system was that you
had
sections of the highways that did not really go anyplace. That changed as
the sections
were connected. You have a similar situation with todays Internet. You can
build
a state of the art back-bone and likely not have anyone in your area to
connect to.
That will change.

One of the problems with the current Internet, which was also seen in the
Inter-State
highway system, is the problem of having early settlers who refuse to move
and see
no benefit in any new highways. They are currently, slowly, being cut-off
and will
find themselves a long way from nowhere, connected to their own small circle
of
insiders. Their address space can be freed up because they are not connected
to a
routable network. They may see no merit in re-locating to a service road and
claim
they will always have a right to pull directly out of their drive on to the
super-highway.
When the fences and walls and barriers go up, they may see that is not
possible.
They certainly have been given a chance to re-locate and do not plan to do
that.
Others seem to jump at the chance to be on the Service Roads, close to the
highway,
with the best of both worlds. They are willing to pay, and those unwilling
to change
are not interested in paying anything. It is easy for a company to see which
group
they will serve.

>From a governance point of view, people could view themselves as city
planners.
They may see that not only is it better to be on a Service Road, it may be
even better
to be one more step back in an industrial park with roads that lead to the
Service
Roads, or a residential area that leads to the Service Roads. Just as it was
not possible
for everyone to have a driveway on the Inter-State, it is also not possible
for everyone
to have a driveway or parking lot on the Service Road, instead, most people
are two
hops away from the superhighway, and they can take advantage of local
content in
their residential area and also in their Service Road area, without putting
traffic on the
super-highway. Compelling content in local areas is starting to grow. City
planners have
to take that into account. New longer-range wireless technology should
create a
dramatic increase in local compelling content.

In order to be prepared, as individuals, you may want to consider a
connection
arrangement with PE (Provider Edge) and CE (Customer Edge) devices. The
entire
arrangement can be constructed in today's market for about $200. That
price-point
is key to making it more widely used. In the arrangement, you also get
Packet TV
for free as part of the CE device. Your connection arrangement would be:

Transport------PE----+----CE (TV)-------PC

The plus sign (+) shows an opportunity for a local connection to your
neighbor.
Packets never flow on the "Transport".

Transport------PE----+----CE (TV)-------PC
Transport------PE----+----CE (TV)-------PC
Transport------PE----+----CE (TV)-------PC

The Uni.X to Uni.X .NETworking focuses on the protocols and message
exchanges in
the DMZ between the PE and CE devices. The PE devices can insulate and map
the
messaging to whatever nonsense-dujour the Transport is using to provide
service.
Likewise the CE devices can insulate and map the messaging for variations in
PCs.

As compeling content arrives, tailored to the PE and CE arrangement, people
on the
PCs will benefit from that. If they were still connected directly to the
Transport they
may not have access.

One example of a PE service which is now wide-spread is DNS. Many people,
and
more each day, now obtain their DNS directly from their PE device. The PE
device does
not need any root servers, can talk directly to TLDs, and can also be
re-programmed to
become part of the TLD Registry, by hosting secure domain registrations.
That allows the
central Registry to go away, with the peer-to-peer DNS running in the PE
devices. The
CE devices can insulate the users as evolution occurs. Translation: Your
browsers can
still work, despite a complete re-design and change-out of the DNS, while
you continue
to operate. This type of migration has been going on for years in the
telecom industry and
continues to occur, while people sleep.

As with the Inter-State superhighway, some people will decide to migrate and
others will
refuse to change. That is their choice. At the moment, they do not see any
benefit.
Fortunately, many people do see the benefit and are migrating and helping to
create the
compeling content for the PE and CE arrangement. From a governance point of
view, as
city planners, it may be wise to consider the merits of a long-range plan,
with free
addressing and routing for both local and global traffic. Your children may
thank you when
they can connect their SystemLink LANs for free and play video games with
their friends
in their local area, and watch each other on packet TV. There are now enough
people in
local meat-space areas to make that viable. That was not the case 10 years
ago. Things
have changed, the market has evolved, some people refuse to change. You see
the results.

_______________________________________________
governance mailing list
governance at lists.cpsr.org
https://ssl.cpsr.org/mailman/listinfo/governance