March 12th, 2008Speakers Pounding Net Neutrality at eComm08
Live from Ecomm08 MountainView. Three speakers in a row this morning at eComm2008 are hammering on the point of network accessibility and neutrality in the US (yes it’s an issue here too). First up was Jonathan Christensen from Skype who gave us a history of the company, including some admissions (we got a little distracted after the eBay purchase but new things and great new developments are on the way he claims).
Some notes:
- 2003, it wasn’t rocket science but Skype was the first to close the loop in voip, solve the NAT problem, just worked, unlike other IM voice services which would be foiled 20-30% of all calls by home routers or firewalls.
- Now skype is everywhere 250M+ users and on may devices, mentions Nokia N800, PSP
- In the future sees smart applications driving the network, not coming from the core netork providers (a common refrain).
- But mobility is the last anchor to the old way, spectrum scarcity make it perfect walled garden. The good old way again, phone numbers tied geography, contracts, locked devices – yuck
- Finally(?) though the internet goes mobile, 700 mhz aucion (in the U.S. not yet canada), open platform conditions apply, new games begin. Still need to be vigilant about net neutrality, but maybe this is a great hope.
- Next 10 years: multi-modal communications, real time hd video, data, presence,, text, wideband audio, fixed mobile convergence for real, mashups, freedom with mobility
- Final point: what the future holds and needs is Natural segmentation competencies
1) infrastructure players focus on what they do best (pipes)
2) application innovation comes from outside
Next up Michael Shiloh from Open Moko
- Open Moko is an open hardware platform for mobile
- General purpose device with completely open specs, open source OS, drivers and application layer
- Even the form factor is open, plastic casing is released as open CAD files
- No devices are ever locked, everything can be rewritten
- Great also for special purpose devices, like adapted designs of in-dash connected GPS/car mobile computers, or other special purpose apps
- Of course, requires a degree of open networks for these devices to be useful
- The missing question that I didn’t get the answer too was, how does the company help/work with 3rd parties with design, manufacture or distribute open moko based hardware?
3rd up, David Isenberg a man after WirelessNorth’s heart: a legendary Telco troublemaker
- 10 years ago wrote the highly influential “the rise of the stupid network” (are we still waiting for this?)
- He brings up Martin to the stage. A Brit. Martin has the old iso stack printed on his tshit: physical layer, network layer etc. then topped with application layer, finance, political layer — you are here!
- At home, Edward has 30 isps to choose from, 24mb dsl is about 35USD a month.
- David: most of us live in duopoly or monopoly world. The reason for that is political. Politics determines what our internet looked.
Structural separation.
- David: We need pipes separate from the apps.
- David is organizing a confernce in Washington DC “Freedom to Connect” March 31st. This is a fantastic idea we should copy in Ottawa btw.
- David’s key point is this: Net Neutrality is essential – but the devil is in the details. There needs to be exceptions for network management, but for 60 years (the days of radio even) the big players have playing the network management card to lock out competition
- What we need to do is consider, instead of absolute network nuetrality is structural separation.
Think about how relevant this is when the biggest network players are also vertically integrated with media companies. How much incentive is there to roll out the capacity to serve other people’s content channels and services (whether it be anything from voice on skype to tv over IP).
Favourite conversational quote of the morning: “What? Canada has worse networks than the U.S.? We thought you guys were always supposed to be way more progressive than us.”
