[governance] Article on national sovereignty and communications in Indian Magazine Diplomatist

[Barry Shein]

On January 12, 2015 at 20:46 lmcknigh at syr.edu (Lee W McKnight) wrote:
 > Barry,
 > 
 > Not to be pedantic...but then I am a prof so I guess I should not apologize: google 'statistical multiplexing'

Not to be pedantic, but in a previous life I spent about 10 years as a
lecturer in computer science in Boston University's Dept of Math & CS,
and have taught at Harvard's Kennedy School of Govt, by invitation.

And have run a commercial ISP probably longer than anyone on the
planet earth, since 1989, see:

  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_World_%28Internet_service_provider%29

You can look at a brief overview, including pubs, invited talks, etc
here:

  www.TheWorld.com/~bzs

(do you ever spend even one microsecond wondering about the
credentials of the other person before suggesting they google basic
terms?  Perhaps you need to do some googling of your own?)

 > 
 > Which explains why we now speak of voice or even tiny sms/instant messages over IP vs in their native telecom formats...

That's irrelevant.

Internet traffic travels over the international telephony network much
of which has been repurposed for internet traffic but is often much
the same as the historical voice network particularly in management
and structure (technology details change but this isn't about copper
vs fiber I hope.)

That they can (and do) float voice traffic over IP is not the
interesting point.

The interesting point is that it's almost all still owned and managed
by companies with names like AT&T, Verizon, and the various PTTs
internationally, or similar where de-monopolization has
occurred. Companies which by and large exist within sovereign
political boundaries, often heavily regulated or even state-owned.

Particularly though certainly not exclusively the Tier 1 core network
fabric. They also of course control nearly all the mobile traffic,
both data and voice.

It's the same people (metonymically speaking), with some notable
exceptions, as controlled the voice telephony network over the past
100 years (perhaps hyperbolic but roughly speaking) with largely the
same overall organization particularly across national boundaries.

Layered above this is a service, what we call the internet data
network, with its own organization.

The question is where are the control points and boundaries and are
they as sovereign-independent as is being portrayed?

-- 
        -Barry Shein

The World              | bzs at TheWorld.com           | http://www.TheWorld.com
Purveyors to the Trade | Voice: 800-THE-WRLD        | Dial-Up: US, PR, Canada
Software Tool & Die    | Public Access Internet     | SINCE 1989     *oo*

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