[ NNSquad ] Re: UDP Wars

[Brett Glass <nnsquad@brettglass.com>]

At 10:26 AM 12/3/2008, Lauren Weinstein wrote:

> It's time that we stop looking at the Internet only as a patchwork
> of independent, typically unregulated networks,

To do so would be to change the fundamental design of the Internet. 
Remember, the "Internet" was designed to be exactly that: a loose 
federation of independently owned, operated, and managed networks 
which could communicate -- if the owners so chose -- with one 
another. The institutions which designed and formed the Internet 
needed, and insisted upon autonomy -- including the ability to set 
their own management policies and terms of service. In doing so, 
they intended to depart from the business and operational models of 
the centrally managed, omnipresent Bell System monopoly that 
prevailed at the time.

> and more in terms of
> an overall interconnected system that may need some level and forms of
> oversight similar to those long considered appropriate for other
> critical utility-related functions.

Such burdensome regulation and micromanagement would, effectively, 
turn the Internet back into the Bell System of old, paving the way 
for a monopoly or at best a duopoly. This would be the worst 
possible outcome, in my opinion, for consumers and for consumer 
choice. And by unnecessarily imposing centralized control and 
eliminating diversity, it would stifle innovation. Any such 
regulatory system would also be subject to regulatory capture by 
large corporations (e.g. Google) which could see an advantage in 
bending the system to their specific interests.

In short, a "utility" model would kill the Internet as we know it, 
replacing it with an unresponsive, homogeneous duopoly which would 
hinder innovation as least as much as the Bell System of old did 
when it refused even to allow you to fit a plastic pipe over the 
mouthpiece of your phone. And because the regulation would always 
cover the one or two providers available to you (no independents 
such as my own company would be able to survive), you'd have no 
opportunity to find another provider that might be more hospitable.

--Brett Glass