Network Neutrality and Innovation

La entrada es del blog de David S. Isenberg y es un nuevo llamado a que los "conectados" del mundo (todos, si no ya, más temprano que tarde) opten por actuar en pro de preservar a Internet como el "espacio público global" que en sus orígenes fue, que hasta ahora es, y que para seguir brindando beneficios a todos así mismo, debería seguir siendo. Los beneficios surgen de la inmensa INNOVACIÓN que a diario es posibilitada por el DNA de la red (por DNA traducimos interconectividad, o sea protocolo TCP/IP + tráfico enrutado sin discriminaciones de ningún tipo)

El argumento es sencillo y poderoso: la banda ancha, las cuantiosas inversiones que quien quiera hacerlas para proveer banda ancha haya de hacer, sólo tienen sentido porque el Internet está ahí, y funciona como funciona: abierto, innovador, público; de otra manera, sin Internet como lo conocemos (con telecomunicaciones como las que teníamos a principios de los 90, remember?) la banda ancha no existiría como concepto ni mucho menos en los casos de negocios de las empresas transportadoras; asi que la conclusión es que no hay caso de negocio de la banda ancha que justifique alterar el DNA de la Internet, pues tal equivaldría a estar des-agregando, des-truyendo, toda la creación de valor que la Internet hace posible

Extracto 1, ¿Cuál es ese DNA?

"The Internet derives its disruptive quality from a very
special property: IT IS PUBLIC. The core of the Internet is a
body of simple, public agreements, called RFCs, that specify
the structure of the Internet Protocol packet. These public
agreements don't need to be ratified or officially approved -
they just need to be widely adopted and used.

The Internet's component technologies - routing, storage,
transmission, etc. - can be improved in private. But the
Internet Protocol itself is hurt by private changes, because
its very strength is its public-ness.

Because it is public, device makers, application makers,
content providers and network providers can make stuff that
works together. The result is completely unprecedented;
instead of a special-purpose network - with telephone wires
on telephone poles that connect telephones to telephone
switches, or a cable network that connects TVs to content -
we have the Internet, a network that connects any application
- love letters, music lessons, credit card payments, doctor's
appointments, fantasy games - to any network - wired,
wireless, twisted pair, coax, fiber, wi-fi, 3G, smoke
signals, carrier pigeon, you name it. Automatically, no extra
services needed. It just works..."

Extracto 2, ¿Cuáles las evidencias de lo que posibilita crear?

"This allows several emergent miracles.

First, the Internet grows naturally at its edges, without a
master plan. Anybody can connect their own network, as long
as the connection follows the public spec. Anybody with their
own network can improve it -- in private if they wish, as
long as they follow the public agreement that is the
Internet, the result grows the Internet.

Another miracle: The Internet let's us innovate without
asking anybody's permission. Got an idea? Put it on the
Internet, send it to your friends. Maybe they'll send it to
their friends.

Another miracle: It's a market-discovery machine. Text
messaging wasn't new in 1972. What surprised the Internet
Researchers was email's popularity. Today a band that plays
Parisian cafe music can discover its audience in Japan and
Louisiana and Rio.

It's worth summarizing. The miracles of the Internet -
any-app over any infrastructure,
growth without central planning,
innovation without permission,
and market discovery.
If the Internet Protocol lost its public nature, we'd risk
shutting these miracles off..."

Extracto 3, ¿Qué, por ejemplo, estaríamos arriesgando?

"Like other great Americans on whose shoulders I stand, I have
a dream. In my dream the Internet becomes so capable that I
am able to be with you as intimately as I am right now
without leaving my home in Connecticut.

In my dream the Internet becomes so good that we think of the
people in Accra or Baghdad or Caracas much as we think of the
people of Albuquerque, Boston and Chicago, as "us" not
"them.".

In my dream, the climate change problem will be solved thanks
to trillions of smart vehicles, heaters and air conditioners
connected to the Internet to mediate real-time auctions for
energy, carbon credits, and transportation facilities.

In my dream, we discover that one of the two billion who live
on less than dollar a day is so smart as to be another
Einstein, that another is so compassionate as to be another
Gandhi, that another is so charismatic as to be another
Mandella . . . and we will can comment on their blog,
subscribe to their flickr stream and follow their twitter
tweets..."

Extracto 4, ¿A qué alternativa nos veríamos abocados?

"In my nightmare, the telephone company has convinced us that
it needs to monitor every Internet transaction, so it can --
quote-unquote -- manage -- what it calls "my pipes".

Maybe it says it needs to stop terrorism, or protect the
children, or pay copyright holders. Maybe there's a genuine
emergency -- a pandemic or a nuclear attack or a 9.0
earthquake.

In my nightmare, whatever the excuse -- or the precipitating
real-world event -- once the telephone company gains the
ability to know which apps are generating which packets, it
begins charging more for applications we value more.

In my nightmare, once the telephone company has some
applications that generate more revenues because they're
subject to management -- and others that don't -- the former
get all the newest, shiniest, fastest network upgrades, while
the latter languish in what soon becomes Yesterday's Network.

In my nightmare, new innovations that need the newest fastest
network, but don't yet have a revenue stream, are consigned
to second-class service. Or they're subject to lengthy
engineering studies and other barriers that keep them off the
market. In other words, in my nightmare, all but the most
mundane innovation dies..."

"INNOVATION DIES" no son precisamente palabras que querramos escuchar aquí :-)