Net Neutrality and the Future of the Web

The web has been a transformational technology over the past fifty some-odd years. From ARPANET to AOL, it has spread across our economic, social, and political landscape. Just in the past ten years, businesses such as Google and Facebook have become household names. Socially we are more connected than at any point in our history, and it’s only increasing; when we launch our Facebook account, or retweet our latest concert pictures, we are wholly exchanging with another at a faster rate, generating mountains of data, creating new opportunities for entrepreneurs across the globe.

But as we stand at this critical point there is still much in question: what is the future of the Internet? Is it open and accessible, racing across boundaries of State and culture, between filters and through established modes of communication? Or is it closed and monitored, sectioned off between those with capital and those without? The crucial answer has yet to be determined, but powerful forces will not remain at bay.

Today, the race for the entire gambit is playing out ever second, of every day, and there’s no clear end in sight. On one side you have moguls of telecom and media, who only see benefits from increased privatization of the Internet’s core protocol, which is to say they argue in support of a tiered Internet, where principles of supply and demand play out in a market based system of “quality services,” giving those with the largest cash accounts access to the fastest routes. On the other side you have the disciples of a new media, new business, new data, who recognize and respect the openness that has allowed for the flourishing of one-thousand business plans. Clearly someone will win out, but what does it look like?

The simple antidote is choice; but where there is choice, there is also competition, which isn’t something established players necessarily care for. But the decision will have to be made in one way or another, because large amounts of moolah are on the side-lines, waiting for the quail to get spooked. The choice has to be a matter of policy, the ability for new players to enter the broadband market will determine the future of the web. If it’s not LightSquared, it’ll be someone else; and if not them, then on to the next one. We will get there. But it doesn’t have to get messy, it doesn’t have to go the way of China, India, or Iran. Some how though, I think everything will turn out ok.

Helpful Links

The future of the internet: A virtual counter-revolution. The Economist. Sep 2nd 2010.

The internet: The web’s new walls. The Economist. Sep 2nd 2010.

LightSquared to Challenge Clearwire with 4g. Bloomberg. Aug 31 2010.

Network Neutrality. Wikipedia.

China Internet Censorship. Wikipedia.

India Internet Censorship. Wikipedia.

Internet Censorship. Wikipedia.

The Great Debate: What is Net Neutrality. C-SPAN. Sep 6 2008.

WSJ: Information Technology Industry Spending Soars

Tech earnings have been rolling in the past few months and things are looking good. On track for growth, leaders in the IT space are on the move, ordering servers, processors and networking equipment to support the worldwide demand for information and expansion of the Digital Universe. Rackspace Hosting is building out, the Planet is adding machines, Intel server chip revenue up 46%, IBM server sales up 30% and Google reporting $476 million in CAPEX. Also cloud computing looks to be defining this sector in the move toward Warehouse-Scale Machines. Manuel D. Medina of Terremark refers to what we’re seeing as a “major tectonic movement.”

There’s still some distance to go, as mobile matures and more meta-apps begin to sift through the explosion of data points currently being uploaded to the cloud, there will be even more pressure on the demand side for elastic infrastructure which can scale all these new services emerging from the fray. Check out the article.

Spending Soars on Internet’s Plumbing

By DON CLARK And BEN WORTHEN

Behind the recovery in business spending is a surge in purchases of the computers that form the backbone of the Internet, as companies scramble to meet growing demand for video and other Web-based services.

The need to reach customers and employees over the Web is driving furious demand for server systems, the machines that power corporate computer rooms.

Many companies are stocking up on new servers, which typically cost a few thousand dollars apiece, to replace older machines with more energy efficient models or systems with more powerful processors.

Also, an increasing number of businesses are turning to outsourcing companies, which manage computer rooms for customers and in many cases are sharply stepping up purchases of servers to keep up with rising demand.

We’ve been buying thousands of computers this year,” says Doug Erwin, chief executive of ThePlanet.com Internet Services Inc., a Houston-based company that runs data centers to offer computing services. ThePlanet says it now owns about 50,000 Dell Inc. servers.

International Business Machines Corp., one of the biggest vendors of servers, said Tuesday that sales of industry-standard servers jumped 30% in the second quarter, after rising 36% in the first quarter.

The buying activity became apparent last week, when Intel Corp. said quarterly revenue from its unit selling server chips rose 42% from a year earlier, while shipments driven by Internet-related companies’ purchases nearly tripled.

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