Andrew Odlyzko's "Content is not King" finally reminded me that the critical difference in revenue is the change from broadcast (publication) to interaction. Not just interaction between a broadcaster and the audience (talk radio, letters to the editor) but a wholesale change from that dichotomy to everyone having the opportunity to be both or either. His example:

The primacy of connectivity over content explains phenomena that have baffled wireless industry observers, such as the enthusiastic embrace of SMS (Short Message System) and the tepid reception of WAP (Wireless Application Protocol). Combined with statistics showing low cell phone usage, this also suggests that the 3G systems that are about to be introduced will serve primarily to stimulate more voice usage, not to provide Internet access.

I disagree with the second conclusion, data connectivity will be an important part of the result.

I suppose there are enough reasons to think this is possible. And it is possible, like the gPC and gTelco when the news got out that they'd leased a bit of fibre, and goodness knows anyone with dark fibre wants to be a Telco. Wake up, not even Telcos want to be telcos any more. They want to be TV stations, or Video hire outlets or Malls. I suppose a gBrowser and the oft bet gOS are also possible.

But its my firm conviction that Google is both too clever and too wise to invade the Russias of all those markets any time, not soon, ever.

Dark fibre is a customer option, not the first step to Telco-hood. Google contributes financially to Mozilla Firefox for search engine placement. Google is using its weight in the 700MHz auction in the US to get a better deal for its customers, which indirectly, unlike Apple, will benefit Google. The phones its shopping around, AFAIK, are not the result of "hundreds of millions of dollars into developing mobile phone designs," instead they are demo applications on the OpenMoko platform. As for "leaked images," puh-leeze. The alignment with Sprint is I suspect both a pose/feint and one of those non-exclusive things Google does.

If a big beneficiary wants to contribute to some 3rd party open standards for handsets, good for them 3GPP seems obsessed with reinventing in a proprietary way stuff that works just fine already. Products to features, as Doc Searls and others assert, its not about making money with X, but making money because of X.

Google is already suffering staff and product bloat, acknowledged by Eric Schmidt (perhaps its his presence on the Apple board that gives impetus to all this "me too" gNonsense) and if it goes any further down that rat hole, it'll turn the same pear shape all the greedy eventually assume.

(The difference between the clever and the wise:
The clever know how to get out of situations which
the wise wouldn't have gotten into in the first place.)

1. "Peering" is a confusing term
   
   While I agree there are some unfortunate connotations of the word, that are ruthlessly exploited by some, it is globally recognised and dealt with in other countries, New Zealand need not set itself apart from this.
   
   Confusion is best addressed by definition not switching terminology. The chosen alternative, oddly selected by InternetNZ and Telecom, is "Internet Interconnect." "Interconnect" brings its own set of connotations, PT&T PSTN interconnect for example, that are better avoided as they are quite misleading in this context. If Wikipedia is to be believed and "The Internet" is a contraction of "The Internet is a worldwide, publicly accessible network of interconnected computer networks," "Internet Interconnect" expands to "Interconnected Network Interconnection" which is prima facae redundant and illustrates that interconnect is intrinsic to the Internet, not a tack-on the way PSTN "Interconnect" has been with the entry of competitors.
   
   
2. Peering is about "Equals"
   
   Peering not about *being* equals, but *behaving* like equals.
   
   
3. Peering is complex
   
   If we examine the longest operating and largest open peering exchange, WIX, we find 160 odd participants of diverse sizes and skills. If peering was complex, it is unlikely that this number of autonomous networks would participate.
   
   While it is possible to elaborate and complicate even the simplest concepts, look at string compared to macramé, the fundamental of peering, which is the fundamental principle of the Internet is:

   the exchange of traffic between members of different, directly connected, networks.

   As noted here, there are a number of other considerations that some are motivated to mix in, but these don't change the basic meaning.
   
   
4. Peering is about "Circuits"
   
   Historically peering (and most other networking) was implemented with circuits, point to point connections, and for reasons of efficiency and administrative simplicity, there were often pairs of circuits, established by each of the peering networks.
   
   This is before the era of cheap metropolitan switched services like CityLINK's PublicLAN which have allowed multiple connections over a single connection with very high performance at relatively low cost. Plus the circuit model doesn't scale, to provide the connections WIX does to 160 participants would require 25,440 such circuits.
   
   What was once canonical is now historical.
   
   
5. Peering is for Service Providers
   
   Empirically false as demonstrated by this list of registrations for the WIX, note, not all registered autonomous networks currently participate.
   
   The fact that changes in networking technology (the move from circuits to switches), costs of equipment (cheap BGP capable routers) has reduced the cost of entry and meant that customers are now intruding on service provider turf. Like most incumbents, this is regarded with concern.
   
   
6. Peering is about cost saving
   
   Peering has a number of other benefits including performance and resiliency. Peering is often deprecated as less important as transit (global rather than local delivery) costs decline. With recent outages in NZ so topical, the benefit of alternative delivery paths to local services is illustrated.
   
   
7. Peering is about carrying another network's traffic
   
   The argument runs that Network B is carrying Network A's traffic when they peer (and vice versa, but "The Folly Of Peering Ratios" by Bill Norton scotches that debate so I won't address it).
   
   The perspective of this view is completely wrong, Network B is carrying its customer's traffic, which is what it is paid to do. Same for the traffic while it is in Network A, it is traffic their customer has paid to send.
   
   Traffic does not belong to the network, it is the customers'.

In the debate about LLU, much has been made of Property.

From the listing above, most of the debate has conflated two meanings of the word, where their separation would clarify what is being discussed and alleviate the fears of those who are concerned about State confiscation.

1.c. Something tangible or intangible to which its owner has legal title

This definition covers both the meanings that need to be seperated, the tangible copper, that LLU does not threaten. LLU would not take away Telecom's ownership of the physical infrastructure. There is no suggestion that access would be "given," it would be charged, at a rate who's fairness depends on your faith in the State to set prices.

5. A special capability or power; a virtue

The power of the local loop is that Telecom retains the monopoly control of it at the physical level, and we are beginning to see an ominous growth in efforts to control the use made of the services that run over this otherwise impartial infrastructure, "deep packet inspection" and limited performance to preclude the paying customer from making uses of the service which impact the operators profitabiility. NB. These efforts are sometimes presented under the aegis of protecting other customers from abuses by a small minority.

LLU is about sharing the virtue, not removing the tangible, and if you think that is confiscatory, remember you don't own the mineral resources under your land in this country, nor do you own the airspace above it. These virtues of your property are shared.

All that being said, I agree with those who argue LLU is too late, and implementation now, with changing network architectures underway, will be too vigorously opposed by the incumbent and their skill at twisting out of legislative and regulatory constraint suggests this is their new core competency. Evidence from Australia and the fate of their CDMA cellular network suggest their network decisions aren't as good as they could be. We await the outcome of the Next Generation Network investment, it does in fact more resemble the old, application specific approach of the PSTN, expanded to a "Triple Play," but limited to only the three plays that the operator believes will help them retain their current margins.

Fortunately, the Internet architecture routes around defects, and the worse the behaviour of incumbents, both local and alien, the more apparent the need for a "Third Way" becomes. Implementations, not further discussion and reports, are what is needed. The momentum of municipal networks, both wired and wireless, driven by standards and the lowering cost of entry, both at the center and edge of networks, is growing, despite efforts by beneficiaries of the current model, legislative and otherwise.

There is a growing appreciation of the difference between the connection, and the services delivered over it. One demands co-operation, the other benefits from competition.

Only networks of the people, by the people, for the people deserve protection by the collective.

Will this harm the incumbents? Possibly, left to their own selfish devices, they haven't proved terribly adept at adapting. And if it did harm them, isn't the Bentham utilitiarian approach to favour the greatest good for the greatest number apt?

Most nation states are formed on the otherwise dispassionate globe in the same conflict prone manner as tectonic plates. They rub and collide causing huge disruptions, and in the global example, its going to be a while before we'll be able to do anything like predict, let alone mitigate that inevitability.

Nation states on the other hand are recently emergent behaviours and within the usual caveat about the rate of change of culture, able to be modified, or as seems to be the mode for most centrally controlled proprietary business models (for one way or another, governance and culture are business models, just not necessarily concerned only with financial results), they will fade in significance.

As always, beneficiaries of the current incumbents will blare and bray about how they, and they alone, not you mortal child, can clear-sightedly identify the problem, promulgate increasing complex processes and procedures and LO! We are saved.

The global Internet is similarly dispassionate about how we organise above its nature and infrastructure, and as part of the transition we have hooked the Internet to geography, for no other reason than administrative convenience, and we watch as the institutions of various geographic areas seek to impose their rules on citizens of other nation states.

it is as if I could erect a billboard in my back yard with a Swastika (the Nazi one) on it, which, if it could be seen in France, its judiciary would be able to invoke the NZ State to coerce me into removing it. Ah the inertia of systems, and their love of voodoo. ("Violence & Voodoo")

An alternative which occurred to me recently, ANDTOS ("and no doubt, to others sooner"), would be that using citizen managed closed networks, WASTE for example, we may be able to rebuild the global Internet village.

Of course, with the constraints of geography swept away, membership of multiple villages, and the unlimited geographical spread of citizens would be inviolate rights, though equally, and individual might choose to be a member of only a single village and not participate outside of the activities there. Mennonites.

The recreation of the small, shared-interest (even if it be only ranting and flaming each other) network should restore some of the trust that may be reduced in a network you share with everyone else in the world, but the global nature of life, the earth, the net must not be forgotten.

We have lived long with the consequences of accidents of birth, in to family, tribe, gender, culture, disability and geography, it seems the Internet will allow us to choose the virtual world(s) in which we wish to participate.

While this fragmentation may resemble various schisms, it doesn't bear the exclusionary "must make a choice" stress that may have been the cause of problems in the past. And the fragments are as fully connected as they or their members wish to be.

We have the beginnings of such multiple worlds in the sites we choose to visit today.

I'm not advocating a carve-up or Balkanisation of the Internet (CF. portals, walled-gardens, closed-shops), on the contrary, I'm suggesting that we can find such an armour of overlapping and interconnected small rings, that no adversary could penetrate, and every friend could enter.

I hope such networks begin in neighbourhoods, supporting pico-peered, IPv6, wireless clusters.

"Telcos are to the economy what railroads were to the 19th century and maybe what airlines were to the 20th ... building this great big capacity for things to be transferred." John O'Sullivan, CEO Optus

It explains a lot.

Particularly looking at railways in NZ where a share-holder driven company rode the infrastructure down to where the State has a $NZ300M bill to bring it back to scratch. An expensive lesson that hopefully teaches a wider lesson about structural seperation and how it is possible for the commons to own an infrastructure and let multiple service providers operate over it.

The other aspect of John's analogy is, "Where's my car?" Private ownership of self-drive automobiles provides a lot more passenger miles than railways.

And finally, last September I was musing that the next paradigm for telecommunications would be the ocean, Optus's CEO thinks the age of rail still exists in telecommunications. Our timetable, our services, no choice... sorry, when I look at the shabby glory of the Wellington Railway Station, I don't think it still holds that significant a place in the whole transport story.

I think I've given it a fair crack, but its hideous in the way that something that is an unbreakable collection of mediocre implementations of desirable features (that once were products) trapped in a UI framework that is deceptive, inconsistent, illogical and nearly completely indifferent to its own limitations.

If I can find someone with a different opinion, they can buy it and I'll use the money for something more fit for one of the purposes.

Meanwhile: " the solution must guarantee that no client can talk to any other local client (for fear of localized hacking),"

Localised hacking is a very fixable problem after all, you know where they live, but localised exchange is critical, unless you're a ticket-clipping obsessive.

ObURL: http://www.hpi.net/whitepapers/warta/ "This document exists to detail one solution to those looking to deploy authentication-based, for-profit, tiered network services over any Ethernet-based medium that utilizes industry standard protocols to tie in with existing OSS resources."

I know I'm probably not making it clear, but it was Voltaire who said The way to become boring is to say everything."

The point I'm trying to make with these network arguments, and the ones I probably haven't made yet with respect to "Code Is Law," and "Law Is Code" and the fact that the platform for Law is so unreliable (compare and contrast) with the platform for Code is so reliable (leeway, did someone mention leeway? Slack?) Is that government is a network, and the first amendment said the network shall make no law abridging the communication of the people.

The democratic experiment was an end to end network, let the edge decide, networking of the people by the people for the people. And we are so close...

To escaping even the potential for tyranny of information…

Two things, I like to move around and see what's happening in different places, and, until they see somebody else do it, some one marginally like them, (remember the other 8yr old who could swim) people won't risk it. I look a fool, to some perhaps, but more often, I'm either relentlessly ignored or, applauded. Being individual means disapproval from some , but you can never be conformant enough to please everyone either. Its another balance thing. So, while I've a terminal device, I feel I should be out there working, looking otherwise, but still, like the professor with his eyes closed in thinking mode, there I am. And like this barmaid asks me when her brother visits can she bring him into the bar to be with her while she works. I search out the alac. org. or some such and its not possible. Not even in the adjunct food serving premises, or am I wrong? And then, there is the show-off in me.

Why Am I Here

What am I doing here.