BigHook2002 Futures

From: "Brough Turner"
Date: Wed, 11 Sep 2002

I'd like to see new competitors offering multi-megabit (10/100 Mbps, 1 Gbps, etc.) local access to the Internet -- ideally via customer-owned fiber, but wireless access, and multiple forms of ownership are all to be encouraged.  National policy should free local governments to deal with local rights-of-way locally.  I recognize that such a policy will face strenuous and organized opposition from LECs and CableCos.  While we fight those battles, I look to grass roots wireless initiatives to provide relief and support continued Internet growth.

Why?  DMCA, copyrights and censorship are critical issues, but they are part of a public balance that's been in flux for more than 200 years and will require our on-going attention, forever.  The Internet, on the other hand, is a new communications medium -- as significant for mankind as the printing press or the advent of radio & TV broadcasting.  But Internet growth is hampered by local access bottlenecks in most countries.  In the US, the problem is a LEC/CableCo duopoly, where each provider has a vested interest in selling higher-level services -- services that will be compromised by high-speed open Internet connectivity.

I look to wireless access to break the multi-megabit local access bottleneck in the short term and local control of local rights-of-way to facilitate FTTH in the longer term.

- rbt

=================================
R. Brough Turner
Sr. VP & Chief Technology Officer
NMS Communications
100 Crossing Boulevard
Framingham, MA  01702-5406  USA
Tel:  +1 508 271-1312
Fax:  +1 508 271-1147
Email:  rbt@nmss.com
=================================

From: Scott Berry
Subject: Post BigHook thoughts...
Date: Fri, 13 Sep 2002

In the pursuit of worldwide internetworking, we've somehow lost our interest in networking the *local* community. In the future, technological and business models should correct this imbalance. I want to connect in fuller and richer ways with my friends and neighbors, local boards, vendors--people I can actually see and touch; not just to chat with someone from, say, Mongolia. I want my kids to be able to "watch" their class, reach their friends, get homework, call home, or collaborate on projects, no matter where they are in town.

To stretch the "telecom-road" analogy, I'm tired of riding on the same old bus, with it's pre-defined (and cost optimized) routes, stops, service. I want to drive around town, where and when I want, at whatever speed, stop anywhere, at a luxury and reliability level of my own choosing.

[And stop trying to make my phone into a PC. Just network my PC to the 'net from anywhere, and Iíll keep the phone for phone calls.]

Telecom forgot that with PCs the bloated software and apps came first, not the increased capacity. But we have to reach beyond 128K/1M bandwidth (achieve critical mass) before the apps that exhaust capacity really start coming. Technologically, WiFi will have to be the nose in that tent; the rest of the camel will look suspiciously like FTTH.

From: "Roxane Googin"
Date: Sun, 15 Sep 2002

My future scenario starts now. First, my fantasy is that we all recognize a generational technology change for what it is, and not hide from it nor awlfulize it. Just as buggies gave way to cars, the old circuit switched telecom infrastructure is giving way to something much better. Rather than feeling bad about the end of an era, we may as well fell good about creating something much better. A picture is worth 1000 words, so pictures delivered cheaper than voice-only is an added accomplishment. Everything we did to get here counts. We should be proud.

Next, instead of parochial control of "X" (access, content, speed) so that some jerk gets rich on our backs, we figure that low cost and open access are best for the economy. Just as in other transport industries, the carrier has to be neutral, reliable and affordable. In figuring out how to adequately compensate the carrier, and not just box them in and tell them to do a good job, we learn how to face more of how to compensate other forms of technological progress. For instance, "the stack" is not just transport, but also the applications that run on it. The software industry is self-organizing around open code, a radical departure from past economic behavior. These developers recognize the greater good that comes from "socialist" code.

The new questions we are now facing include: can we effeciently run a transport monopoly, or why must we just accept "the next Amtrak"? Would an ologolopy be better? Just why is it that we fail to manage large government projects anyway? Would better information flow (available from new technologies) solve anything? On a cost basis, transport monopolies are always cheapest, because they own one network that goes everywhere. As soon as you get into multiple networks, you fund unproductive redundancy. However, the Internet is a "network of networks", so perhaps it can self-organize in a new fashion that we have yet to imagine.

Bottom line, as we move to the information economy, we have to understand how we own and profit from intellectual property, and not just take pot shots at one another for being pigs. The essence of the scientific method is to immediately publish your ideas. That openness is the basis of the progress that has helped us all, because "two heads is better than one". That was essentially true in the early computer industry, until Hitachi stole those mainframe plans from IBM's Cottle Road operation and Bill Gates and Steve Jobs both got rich by closing off their IP while taking IP from others. As in the prisoner's dilemma, the behavior that helps the individual hurts the group. This forms the basic paradox that drives our economy as we look forward.

Roxane Googin

From: Anonymous
8 Oct 2002

Here's what I look forward to:

True digital paper (see http://www.eink.com) with a wireless interface, accessing wi-fi spots (or other software defined radio) hotspots. Software defined radio technology will allow my digital paper to inspect the radio environment and perform whatever modulation is right for that context, be in wi-fi, cdpd, or what have you.

The digital paper is my email terminal, my IM interface, and my newspaper. It folds up so I can put it in my hip pocket, or backpack. It works on reflected light, not transmitted light, so I can see it clearly while outdoors. Outdoors it recharges itself; indoors it consumes little power.

I don't want to worry about who I buy my service from - I just want it to work. Bill me based on a flat rate. I dont' want to worry that my network provider doesn't allow me to do true peer to peer - my open, end-to-end Internet just allows it.

In the future I still don't care about single-signon, no matter what the marketers tell you. I will also not care about my home or dwelling not being 'smart'. The network is all about human communication to me, not that I'm all that sociable.

Date page last modified: 17 March 2003