Hi Frank -
Apologies for the confusion created by my posts. I've been trying to weave disparate threads of thought into a single strand.
I'll try again.
I was struck by elmat's observations, and your response, back here.
Message 22797478
When that dialogue occurred, I was still in a boring exploration of telecomms policy, worldwide. I was searching for some resolution to issues that have been discussed on your thread for years.
"Meanwhile, what's interesting to note is how uncomfortable some of the supporters of network neutrality legislation have appeared, noting that they usually fall into the libertarian/no-regulation-please camp, but support regulation in this case (even if they claim the regulation is designed to make the market more open). However, in the last few days, there's been a growing push to explore whether or not the free market has failed when it comes to US broadband policy. Broadband expert Dave Burstein notes that all of the world leaders in broadband have come from highly regulated environments, leading folks like Kevin Werbach to ask "Why does unregulated competition in telecom work so well in theory, but so poorly in practice?" It certainly deserves at least some head-scratching.
As it stands now, there are two potential answers that I see. The first, is that an unregulated telecom/broadband market is fundamentally not competitive. As we've emphasized ad nauseum, the real issue in the network neutrality debate is the lack of real competition in the space -- which is still a problem no matter what some people claim. This could be because broadband is a natural monopoly, like the highway system, where it simply does not make sense for there to be competition between different infrastructure projects. It's wasteful and, in some cases, damaging. Instead, it makes more sense to set a single platform, and push for competition within the infrastructure. This is exactly what has happened in France, and has helped build a thriving competitive broadband market there.
A second answer, however, may be that this is a race we shouldn't call yet. We have not hit the finish line yet, and there certainly is the potential that the infrastructure choices made within regulated environments may prove to be a legacy albatross down the road. For an example of this, just look at the race for HDTV from 15 to 20 years ago. There was a huge worry in the US that we were falling behind Japan and Europe in this technology, where their regulated approach allowed them to take a quick headstart, and achieve certain technology milestones that looked great and worried policy makers in the US. However, in the long run, the regulated approach proved problematic and inflexible, causing a lot of problems that the US avoided. To be honest, I'm still not convinced which scenario is the most fitting for US broadband policy, and can make arguments supporting either one. Hopefully, we'll get some interesting discussions going based on this, but it does seem useful to raise the level of discussion to actual disagreement points such as this one, rather than the ridiculous "this is the end of the internet as we know it" level both official "sides" in the network neutrality debate have taken."
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OK. Well said.
1 - In reviewing policy, and in my posts, I distinguish between policy and regulation, which I believe is (or should be) subordinate to policy. Policy is created by lawmakers, regulation interprets and administers policy.
2 - Another key problem, a semantic trap if you will, was "The Market". "Market-driven". What do people mean when they throw these terms around, specifically as they relate to telecomms?
Well, everybody has their own definition, and shades of meaning, but I believe "The Market" is the trade between content creators, and content consumers. Everybody else is an intermediary, and to the extent that they seek to differentiate (or limit) content, they are interfering with such trade. On the other hand, "user pay" is an accepted principle of commerce: payment for access is a matter for policy and regulation. Payment for content is another matter, and is arbitrated by market forces. Certainly, access to as much variety and choice as possible argues that content price will be optimal.
So, the policy aim should be to provide as much bandwidth as possible.
3 - Yet another issue was content - what happens when infrastructure players specify content, by virtue of their control over the pipes, so to speak? Is there an economic incentive for them to expand their role, and profit from their place between content and its consumers?
The answer is yes. The aim of policy should be to eliminate, or at least minimize, intermediary piggybacking.
4 - And finally, what immediate benefits accrue from installing fiber, as infrastructure? The answer is: reallocation of content distribution, and exposure to demand. That includes putting Thighmaster video on networks where users pay for access to content. A toll for travelling the Information Highway is another accepted principle of commerce - and the nature of such tolls is a matter for policy and regulation.
5 - "The conversion from one media construction and format to another has taken place in all transmission venues for reasons that are both arbitrary, as you noted, on the one hand, and for reasons having to do with terrain, on the other. Whatever the apparent drivers are on the surface, the ultimate reason is almost always seeded in economics.
It's only recently that some providers have sought solutions that provide services that are not primarily video-related, and here I'm referring to high-speed Internet access and voice services, which constitute yet another set of drivers. Usually, providers will seek to seize the efficiencies afforded by newer technologies as they apply to their specific needs when the time comes for an upgrade, and sometimes earlier, depending on competitive pressures.
Viewing broadcast video exclusively from an historical perspective for a moment, since that is the area you stipulated, there have always been purpose-built networks to serve the unique requirements of residential, backhaul, interstate and international distribution. We know these as last mile, metro-edge, long haul and international, respectively. There also exist specialized transmission systems for niche content markets, such as Vyvx’s, and now Broadwing’s, offerings for the motion picture industry and large TV networks. Each of the foregoing areas of transmission have used, and continue to use, both wired and wireless approaches, and I don't see this changing anytime soon, although the emphasis, wherever feasible, seems to have been shifting heavily in favor of wired (optical) systems..
The various transport formats that were considered "wired” and "wireless" since the beginnings of TV distribution, however, have yielded constantly to newer formats of wired and wireless, with time.
Residential "wired" has seen coaxial; Hybrid Coaxial/Fiber; twisted pair xDSL; FTT/B/C/H/N etc; and so on. Residential "wireless" has supported Over-the-Air; Satellite, xMDS, Line-of-sight Microwave Radio; and, more recently, various scaled-down formats are now also using Cellular technologies.
For brevity, in the backhual, interstate and specialized segments, all of the following at one time or another has been used: Microwave Radio, Coax; Low-Capacitance Twisted Pair; Satellite; Fiber."
Message 22875576
While I see your point, to a large extent you are referring to engineering solutions, and their commercial offspring. These solutions, to varying degrees, exist in the absence of sufficient bandwidth. They are, and were pragmatic solutions to the telecomms state of the art.
But the state of the art is actually far more advanced than the actual practice of the art. If you will, consider the issue in the abstract. Optical transmission clearly offers the most bandwidth, and not to dismiss the technical issues associated with it, is arguably the most future-proof technology available. The life-cycle cost per bit is as good as it gets. You can put fiber anywhere you can put a highway - and we have put highways, at tremendous cost in many cases, in some very inaccessible and topographically challenging areas.
Where fiber ends, you can create efficient and ordered wireless networks that offer the same choices as their wired counterparts, but at reduced bandwidth. The spectrum made available by re-ordering could be used in many ways, all of them discussed here at various times: Wi-Fi, WiMax, SDR, mobile, nomadic, fixed, spectrum re-use, and the range of possibiilties enumerated by David Reed.
How many spectrum problems could be solved by reallocation of broadcast video and radio to fiber, and re-broadcast by WISP or satellite when needed?
In the abstract, what you want to do is utilize spectrum efficiently - never mind this or that technology, or its commercial advocate.
The Rosetta Stone in all this is the key phrase "freedom of access to content" (or information, as the Swedish put it). Once that becomes the focus and the aim - becomes a right enshrined in policy - everything else starts to fall into place. The engineering counterpart to such policy is creation of capacity and throughput.
The point is that the lesser evil, and the greater good is served by instituting policy that migrates to fiber, as infrastructure. That creates other opportunities, including re-allocation of spectrum, and elimination of many existing imbalances - technological and economic - between content creator and consumer.
Regards,
Jim |
