Broadband
Before we continue the What is Broadband Good For serialization, a big cheer for Rick Whitt! And thanks to Gordon Cook and his list for pointing to the article. Another big cheer for David Weinberger and his new book, Everything is Miscellaneous, reviewed here beautifully by Cory Doctorow. Small Pieces Loosely Joined is one of my favorite books of all time, and Everything is Miscellaneous will join that short list.
Broadband
We have reached the middle word, the heart of the matter. I remember seeing Yehudi Menuhin run a master class about the Bach Chaconne once, with a white linen Indian overshirt over his tuxedo pants. He played the piece for the students, and suddenly stopped to bow deeply. He said that he bowed at that point because it was the exact middle of this great piece, and he wanted to show respect.
“Broadband” is both central to this essay and a loaded word. It is used to draw a distinction between slow and fast speeds, and it implies speed – but this word does much more work than that. To talk about “broadband” means that you either (1) understand “the internet” to be, essentially, the connections we use to access it or (2) that you’re not thinking about “the internet” at all but rather about some speeded, managed “service” that happens to use the Internet Protocol.
What is the internet? Again, this is a mindset question. To the engineers, the internet is a logical architecture, an agreement to chunk data into packets and send them on their individually-routed ways to their individually-numbered destinations. To netheads, the internet is both the logical architecture (the standards) and the relationships that that architecture makes possible; these relationships, pulled together by interest and accident and characterized by shifting boundaries and unpredictable dynamics, are what is so attractive about the internet.. To the telecommunications companies, the internet is the collection of three physical transport links (last mile, middle mile, backbone) and nothing more. To equate “the internet” with “broadband” is to give all prominence to the importance of last-mile speed, and to fall into the traditional telecommunications way of seeing the world. This equation of “internet” with “broadband” subtly ends all discussion and focuses us only on the incentives the telecommunications companies say they need to build out these last miles.
It may be, however, that this use of the word “broadband” isn’t about “the internet” at all, but instead about a very special purpose use of IP: the managed last mile. (Bob Frankston often talks about this.) IP was of course designed to handle “video” in the same way that it manages “voice” and “data,” as undifferentiated packets with no guarantees. The idea was that the ends of the network would take care of the guaranteeing. This works rather well. It leaves a lot of room for reinvention and new opportunities to be new.
The managed last mile, by contrast, is potentially indistinguishable from a cable system with a cellphone overlay, optimized on billing and bundling. I realize that Verizon and AT&T have different plans for our “broadband” future, but this use of “broadband” is what may be meant by AT&T’s “Your World Delivered” and Verizon’s “Our People. Our Network” slogans. It’s our network, we manage it, and we’re going to deliver content to you. You’ll be passive, you won’t need to upload, we’ll take care of all of this for you and you’ll be happy.
If I can convey only one idea in this short study of this short phrase, it is this: the use of “broadband” as the portmanteau term for online communications has significant connotations. The train left the station carrying this word long ago; the OECD studies “broadband” penetration, not “highspeed internet access” penetration, the President calls for “broadband” by 2007, and the Progress and Freedom Foundation identifies “many signs that the U.S. broadband market is showing healthy growth” – including the new “mobile wireless broadband” platforms. If there is anything that isn’t highspeed internet access, it’s mobile wireless as it is now in this country.
Even though the word “broadband” is in wide use, we should try to be candid about what it means, and careful to make sure that its differences from “the internet” are understood. At the least, we should understand how the intentional use of “broadband” affects central communications policy debates.
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Assuming that it is possible to regulate the use of the term “Internet access” to exclude such managed services (which I doubt is possible), when does the service provider's behavior on the last mile cross the line from Highspeed Internet Access to Broadband? Is it OK for them to prioritize voice packets marked Expedited Forwarding (which I wish my ISP would do)? Or is it only when the service provider acts in an anti-competitive way?
I have enough problems with things that are called Highspeed Internet Access. Hotels love to sell you this for $9.95 a night, and sometimes the result is slower than dialup. All that matters to them is that they deliver it on an Ethernet cable or WiFi. We really need some truth in advertising here.