[8673] in Commercialization & Privatization of the Internet
One-way Internet?..no, it's "Asymetric"
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Richard Smith)
Tue Nov 30 14:36:57 1993
Date: Tue, 30 Nov 1993 11:36:22 -0800
To: com-priv@psi.com
From: smith@sfu.ca (Richard Smith)
Related to my comments yesterday on the Hybrid Networks
Inc./Tele-Communications Inc. 'cableTV' internet connection. I asked
whether PSI's solution was also 'one-way'. (Hybrid's system isn't really
one-way, but you receive at ethernet speeds and send at modem speeds by a
telephone call). The word is that the PSI solution uses the same
technology, possibly from the same company, Hybrid.
Perhaps this has been debated already here, but what are the
advantages/disadvantages of this sort of asymetric transport? The
advantages I see include being able to provide higher bandwidth to more
people. The disadvantage is that the internet moves to a broadcast model,
with all the qualities that implies.
No doubt lurkers are a kind of Internet Couch Potato, but the *possibility*
of posting is always there. Do we need to emulate broadcast TV in order to
commercialize and privatize the internet? Is that what the vast majority of
people really want, anyway, and we should stop kidding ourselves that they
will pick up their electronic pens and fill the 'net with erudition once
there is fibre in every home?
--
______________________________________________________________________
Richard Smith "PhD in '93!" Richard_Smith@sfu.ca
Research Associate/CPROST @ SFU +1-604-291-5116 (office)
Management of Technology: Innovation & Change +1-604-291-5112 (fax)
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