Is the internet as important as electricity to the development of economy, education, and society?
Is universal internet access so necessary that the interests of society outweigh the unregulated profit interest of corporations?
Consider that a modern internet enables...
...a consumer to reach thousands of retailers and diverse products and service.
...a motivated student to access the entire coursework of Harvard University, including lectures, free of charge.
...an entrepreneur or worker to reach a worldwide market from a home office, thus easing the burden on our over-stressed transportation and resource infrastructure.
The time has already come for the internet to follow in the footsteps of the Rural Electrification Act.
In the early- and mid-1900's, standardizing our electrical system gave engineers a solid set of parameters (60Hz 120V) to work with. Equally important, universal access by millions of households gave business managers the clarity of vision to pursue exciting new products and services.
Now the 'net must follow the same path.
Today, a modernized universal-access internet will deliver a digital economy that offers the promise of global design coupled to energy efficient local production and delivery. A modernized internet will also ensure the proper regulation of activities by business and individuals.
In order to retap the creative forces, we need the internet utility to have the following:
1. A federally mandated Quality of Service (QOS) to provide minimum bandwidth and latency for different tiers of service. QOS parameters will allow engineers to design more sophisticated digital products and services for different consumers. If the internet is the 'digital highway', then this largely amounts to making sure vehicle lanes are of at least a certain width.
Service QOS delineation will be at the port level and per 'hop' and would follow the 'spectrum allocation' approach of wireless. For example, Port 80 (standard HTTP web browser traffic) could have fairly lax latency/bandwidth standards (e.g. 1+ sec, 100 Kbps) while port 1755 (video conferencing) could have much better QOS (e.g. 40ms, 1600 kbps). Certain ports would be designated for certain service levels - and the user could choose to run their service types (HTTP, RTSP) at different levels. QOS would also be different for servers that are very far away - somewhat like an 'internet miles' approach.
The intent is to create a 'matrix' of service and quality levels for the user to pick from - from "First Class Round the World" fare to a "Local Newspaper/TV and Email Coach Class" fare. For example, while most users might be content to watch low quality flash video from Hulu, a 'power user' might pay to have HTTP traffic run at near real-time 'video conferencing' QOS levels to allow 'Hulu High Definition'. This service level differentiation is accomplished by utility level router assignment of HTTP traffic (usually Port 80) for the power user to the higher priority port (port 1755) for backhaul transmission from Hulu's servers.
It is expected that Operating Systems, applications, and web services could be readily modified to meet a defined QOS structure. However, in the interim period the described QOS structure would still allow for usage with existing systems.
2. Universal access with tiered QOS to meet site classification and user-selected packaging. Just as a rural residence can't readily access the same amount of electrical power as an industrial zone, rural access with lower user density will be site classified as needing to meet only the lowest internet QOS levels (something akin to 120hz, 30amp electrical service).
The 'power user' may pay more to get a better level of service than the federally mandated, but the intent is to assure that all users see continual improvement in internet service. This implies a telecomm like 'universal access fee' in which power users subsidize basic users (it should be noted that this represents a shift from the current internet usage model).
3. Sophisticated metering. It is foreseen that the model will follow unlimited basic services (email, etc) with metered net usage for enhanced multimedia streaming and large file transfer. Nothing's free in this world and there should be some correlation between cost and usage - though utility pricing shouldn't discourage heavy usage by enthusiasts.
Users may monitor and restrict bandwidth usage of metered services (e.g. limit video streaming to $30/month), and also designate a 'bid price' for download.
It is expected that more sophisticated usage models will develop. For example, a video rental would be downloaded overnight (when there's less real-time traffic) and the video rental firm may place their servers physically closer to the user (content mirroring) to lower delivery costs or increase QOS for all tiers of service.
4. Funding through an internet tax. Local businesses are at significant competitive disadvantage, with taxes alone creating a 5-10% price disparity between local-internet retailers. An internet tax zone will simplify sales tax collection while also leveling the playing field for the local production and delivery of goods - local production being desirable from an energy standpoint.
5. A digital monetary system to replace the Visa/Mastercard tax. The federal government created paper currency for a time of simple commerce. It's time for the federal government to force banks to provide a paypal-like service that reflects the low transactional cost and real-time 'instantly there' nature of digital money transfers. As the digital economy grows, Visa/Mastercard can't rely on taking their 1-2% of all transactions as a digital overhead.
6. Federal sponsorship of open-source hardware and software development to create standardized systems that form the command and control infrastructure from 'final mile' control box to 'backhauls'. Approved components will be subject to bulk purchasing price controls and must adhere to open source rules and industry standards to mitigate security and obsolescence issues while allowing universal management policies and practice.
Strengthening the internet in general would also decrease the intrusion into other networks such as US military and electrical/water SCADA (Supervisory Control And Data Acquisition) networks. Currently, the low security internet allows attackers to ambush from unsecured network nodes and conceal their tracks. There is a national security interest in making systems stronger - and the Linux experience with open-source development promises better security for the internet.
7. A locally designed and controlled utility model, subject to Federal QOS as well as price controls and universal access standards set by state government. The local design provision will allow for the continuation of hardware development 'experimentation' by eliminating 'one size fits all' federal approvals. While retaining some independence at the local level, the standardization approach also ensures that all local utilities (regardless of size) have access to top-tier technology selections at equal pricing.
8. Established identity privacy and data privacy laws which are 'hard-coded' into the federally sponsored open-source software and hardware (as legislation is passed). To minimize the potential of service disruption by privacy lawsuits, it is expected that the default will be no IP address tracking (ie anonymous proxy at local DNS level), thus imposing on the user the need to specifically enable tracking via 'cookies' or login information. It should be noted that IP cloaking or utility level router Network Address Translation (NAT) also offers potential to reduce the spread of malware/ viruses and certain other attack methods.
Law enforcement access to IP addresses, digital content movement, and browsing history will be under search warrant or as otherwise provided by legislation. All data to and from the utility ISP will be encrypted using a key that can be accessed only by law enforcement. This will provide end-end security for business's commercial activity and help protect individuals identity. Further encryption would require a license which would include placing the key in offline escrow. Unlicensed encryption key usage would be considered a legal basis for physical premises search by law enforcement.
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Contemplating making the internet a utility has a democratic appeal to it, but the necessary regulation picture implies a far-reaching vision made necessary by the diverse elements that the internet touches. In fact, this complexity is itself an argument for regulation, as something so interwoven with our society and economy should certainly be treated as public infrastructure.
The complexity could be lessened by a piece-meal approach - with the usual caution about not losing the big picture. For example the internet tax could be implemented in another bill which simply applies local taxes on the movement of all goods and services.
From a technical, business, and regulatory perspective, the internet utility certainly looks doable - and necessary.
Fortunately, the internet has a simple enough technical model which is largely built on complementary standards that are inherently flexible. The utility model would only involve itself at the lowest level of the communications, thus minimizing the potential disruption to service. It also allows for the slow migration of the American and global internet by creating an advanced, regulated model which works on top of the existing internet. At the heart of it, a utility model works on top of copper and optical fiber and need only offer a few simple rules for QOS.
From a business standpoint, standardizing the delivery of content would be the last step in standardizing the internet - and enabling the creativity of all that focused energy. Standards already dominate nearly ever element of the internet: browsers decode standard HTML to display content; content moves over standardized fiber optic protocols; and client finds server through a standard IP addressing system. Again, standardizing QOS simply allows that much easier business forecasting and less head-scratching for customer support.
The regulations for the internet are far behind the capabilities of the network. For all the promise that the internet has delivered on, there are too many potential show-stoppers from botnets to SCADA/military network attacks - plus the soft cost of all that spam. It might be said that the internet today is like a Far East traffic system (think rickshaws and SUVs). Sure, chaos can work, but it's inefficient and there's the increasing chance of a terrible pile-up crash.
Author's note: As evidenced by the points 1-8, there's a fair amount of thought that's went into shoehorning the internet into a utility model. The goal was to expand on the internet's freedoms - while acknowledging some real issues.
To put it simply, the breadth and complexity of the points are due to unrestrained ambition; the above points tie up a fair amount of loose ends (for example the data privacy provisions and law enforcement access) while also touching on a some fairly complex QOS issues.
All that verbosity explanation aside, if you're still reading to this point, please take heed of the following (Uncle Sam Needs You):
There is much more to be done to make all of this work, and I'd like to make this a community effort. If you (or some passionate geek you know) would like to be involved, leave an email addy along with any comments. There will be at least an audience of 1 for any rants/raves/comments...I'm very much interested in hearing from a wide range of people