[12709] in Commercialization & Privatization of the Internet
InfoBahumbugBahn, Internet, Convergence and us
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Daniel P Dern)
Thu May 26 21:20:23 1994
Date: Thu, 26 May 1994 09:50:19 -0400
From: ddern@world.std.com (Daniel P Dern)
To: com-priv@psi.com
One question I get asked a lot (and probably you folks do too)
by non-Internauts is "will this infohighway stuff mean the end of the
Internet?"
Part of my answer is, "It doesn't have to."
Consider: the Internet doesn't "exist" in terms of being a specific network.
Even the NSFnet is a virtual network, rather than dedicated physical links,
these days.
If we view ze marvelous data superdooperhighway as YA bigger and better
carrier services infrastructure, the Internet can expand within that.
(There's one obvious kicker coming, namely virtual balkanization.)
Let the US do the NREN and maybe the NII. Let Microsoft and Oracle and
Bell Atlantic and Tom Malone and Rupert Murdoch and every one else "build"
their own parallel "highways." If the Internet community(s) want to
aggregate and buy and operate and use a virtual Internet using the
digital roadways, why not? Sure sounds a lot like what we've got now,
in part ... AlterNet and CERFnet and PSI and Digex and NetCom and Uunorth
and Pipex and Demon and the like ... arguably, "we" are the Internet,
and the NREN and NII are welcome to either use the Internet in part
e.g., as users, or by creating their own (virtual) net and then plugging
in as desired to the Internet (CIXen, GIXen, CORen, whatever).
To the extent that the Internet is economically self-funding, versus
dependent on gummint monies, there's no reason we must be co-opted.
Heck, the hardware and pipes keep getting cheaper, and a lot of us
_are_ rocket scientists, so to speak. I would bet that if we woke up
tomorrow to find the "Internet" had been somehow de-privatized
("governmentized"), disenfranchizing many of us in the process, within
24-48 hours a "people's Internet" would be in place using dial-up
links, and a new leased-line infrastructure as quick as the orders
could be filled. Which is, in reality, what PSI and AlterNet and MFS
and ANS and others have already done anyway.
So I'm not worried. Not by that, anyway.
See (some of) you in San Jose - anyone interested in a "com-priv BOF"
(or maybe just a 'meet and greet and match faces with .sigs')
get-together? Latter sounds more sensible. E-mail to me, I'll
email back and post a sign at the show or something. I'm the one
carrying the little green fish ("the only network solution that scales")
DPD
Daniel Dern (ddern@world.std.com) Internet analyst, technology/business writer
Author, The Internet Guide For New Users (McGraw-Hill, 1993) -- For info and
*FREE* Internet Learner's Permit, see 'Dern' area of Internet.Com gopher!
(617) 969-7947 Fax:(617) 969-7949 Snail: PO Box 309 Newton Centre, MA 02159
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