While I think this is a great cause I think it is analogous to things like security by trust v. security by design and the teach a man to fish principle. Let me explain.
It is pretty obvious that eventually companies like planetLabs are going to drive down the cost of Satellites to the point where they are deployed at such capacity that internet is ubiquitous. The "too cheap to meter" of Eisenhower IS coming to internet, however, in the interim we will have a battle.
I think the smartest way to outflank the ISPs is to focus on paying hardware hackers and developers to create a hardware solution so that we can create city wide subnets. Then these can either buy bandwith from Cogent-esqu companies or ISPs. This will greatly increase our collective bargaining power.
I see this functioning like roman city states or like the judicial, legislative and executive branches of government. Distributing power across a broad enough playingfeild to allow things to get done (not really true in American Gov't anymore) while limiting any individuals power.
As far as a quick layman's glance has shown, the problem is specific to the 'last mile' bit of data connection, which is run by Comcast, Verizon, etc...
The backbone pipelines are run by companies like Level3 and Cogent, which are not of concern for this debate.
'Last mile' wires tend to be one company per city, so we're stuck trying to prevent relatively small-scale monopolies from extracting rents via regulation. The better solution is competition.
I've heard a little chatter about the subnet idea, but it'd be tricky to do 'underground' with regards to city regulation and trickier to get approval for.
Basically it would be analgous to everyone opening their router and daisy chaining them all together. That would be "last mile". It would be like connect to Linksys.LosAngeles and then backbones connect you up to San Fran. That way either content providers could locate in cities and push locally, or ISPs would have to come to the table.
Sounds great... eventually. But in the short term, there absolutely needs to be a community response to this policy. It will begin to affect everyone far sooner than a complete overhaul of last-mile net infrastructure.
Comments
While I think this is a great cause I think it is analogous to things like security by trust v. security by design and the teach a man to fish principle. Let me explain.
It is pretty obvious that eventually companies like planetLabs are going to drive down the cost of Satellites to the point where they are deployed at such capacity that internet is ubiquitous. The "too cheap to meter" of Eisenhower IS coming to internet, however, in the interim we will have a battle.
I think the smartest way to outflank the ISPs is to focus on paying hardware hackers and developers to create a hardware solution so that we can create city wide subnets. Then these can either buy bandwith from Cogent-esqu companies or ISPs. This will greatly increase our collective bargaining power.
I see this functioning like roman city states or like the judicial, legislative and executive branches of government. Distributing power across a broad enough playingfeild to allow things to get done (not really true in American Gov't anymore) while limiting any individuals power.
IDK just a concept I have been working on.
Spot on.
As far as a quick layman's glance has shown, the problem is specific to the 'last mile' bit of data connection, which is run by Comcast, Verizon, etc...
The backbone pipelines are run by companies like Level3 and Cogent, which are not of concern for this debate.
'Last mile' wires tend to be one company per city, so we're stuck trying to prevent relatively small-scale monopolies from extracting rents via regulation. The better solution is competition.
Enter Google Fiber, spurring competition: http://www.kansascity.com/2014/04/21/4973046/att-may-bring-g...
I've heard a little chatter about the subnet idea, but it'd be tricky to do 'underground' with regards to city regulation and trickier to get approval for.
Basically it would be analgous to everyone opening their router and daisy chaining them all together. That would be "last mile". It would be like connect to Linksys.LosAngeles and then backbones connect you up to San Fran. That way either content providers could locate in cities and push locally, or ISPs would have to come to the table.
Cool, any recommendations for further reading? I seem to recall Nick Merrill of Calyx being interested in this sort of thing for SF.
Sounds great... eventually. But in the short term, there absolutely needs to be a community response to this policy. It will begin to affect everyone far sooner than a complete overhaul of last-mile net infrastructure.