[ NNSquad ] Re: [IP] MIT Tech review vs the Internet

[Brett Glass <nnsquad@brettglass.com>]

At 06:01 AM 7/6/2008, Bob Frankston wrote:

> Do I need to again cite Andy Lippman's observation that networking 
> is something we do and not a service we have to buy.

To revisit the automotive analogy: is driving something that we 
just do, without having to pay to build and maintain roads? Of 
course not. Our ability to "do" networking hinges on the 
availability of functional network infrastructure. And it's an 
honorable and important profession to build, operate, and maintain 
that infrastructure. When you're in the Boston area, which is awash 
in infrastructure, it's easy to forget that. But go just a few 
hundred miles west and ask a resident of rural western 
Massachusetts -- which is largely a broadband "black hole" -- 
whether building out the network is valuable.

Those who have subscribed to the "end to endian" dogma must 
remember that you cannot be an end unless there is a middle and you 
are connected to it.

--Brett Glass

  [ And since roads *are* so important, they are typically publicly-
    owned infrastructure and (at least in theory) maintained to
    specific standards -- even privately-owned toll roads and such
    are significantly regulated.  Is the Internet as important as
    roads within its own context?  If so, can the present largely
    laissez-faire approach to the Internet be indefinitely
    justified?

        -- Lauren Weinstein
           NNSquad Moderator ]