Level 3 blames Internet slowdowns on Technica

Fri Mar 21 15:59:54 UTC 2014

Well, we were originally talking about regulation in the US as discussed by Level 3 in the subject article, but we can get into the international space if you like.

So, as far as the government or Wall Street funding the build out of the commercial Internet, that is not what happened.

I was there in the beginning selling dial-up service, dedicated data circuits, and finally DSL.  Wall Street got into the game very late.  We built our company into a $30 million operation before they cared to notice.  The government, while they did the initial research that created the Internet, did not help us and was in fact a huge hinderance to progress until the Telecommunications Act where they attempted to deal with us upstarts trying to upset the status quo.  Why people think the government was instrumental in the commercial Internet is beyond me.  I think some politicians might want you to think so.

I see no reason why the US model would not work in any market economy.  It is a simple matter of supply and demand.  If your economy cannot afford the infrastructure or the people have no money to pay for services, you are going to have a problem.  There is a huge problem in that people think GOVERNMENT FUNDED=FREE,  it does not and in most cases is more expensive than the commercial alternatives since there is no motivation to be efficient.

In that case a hybrid approach like I used in helping schools in the Philippines will work better.  We used government funding and private grants to provide high speed internet to rural schools and we did it by buying commercial available wireless and cable services.  This helps the people and also helps grow the communications industry there.  The government does nothing but pay the bills (and they rarely even do that right).

Steven Naslund

-----Original Message-----
From: Mark Tinka [mailto:mark.tinka at seacom.mu] 
Sent: Friday, March 21, 2014 10:01 AM
To: Naslund, Steve
Subject: Re: Level 3 blames Internet slowdowns on Technica

On Friday, March 21, 2014 04:46:13 PM Naslund, Steve wrote:

> First question to ask yourself is who is paying for it. 
> The "governments" don't do things out of the kindness of their hearts.  
> They will want to be paid for it.
> Control means power and people in power want to get paid.

No one is denying that.

If I have the opportunity for my taxes to do real work like build a national optical backbone, instead of lining some guy's pockets, I'm fine with that.

> Who else would run the network?  Do we think the government can or 
> should be operating communications networks?  Do you want the 
> government controlling what content you get or producing that content?  
> I think not.
>  Look at the wonderful job they are doing maintaining our 
> transportation infrastructure.

My point was the governments do not know how to seek information on how best to sub-contract running of the network.

I certainly don't want the government running my network. 
Heck, they barely know how to use the lift in their building.

But what we need is a more transparent process on choosing the right person (and model) to operate the network. In most deployments, this has been the weakest link.

> That is because we don't need a government initiative to do that.  
> Most people in the US have access to broadband networks today because 
> they wanted it and they were willing to pay someone for it.  That is 
> called a business initiative and it is much more efficient than any 
> government initiative.

Right, but that is the U.S. (which is why I specifically mentioned Asia-Pac and Africa).

Other countries with smaller economies have realized that the quickest way to close the "digital gap" is, perhaps for better or worse, have the government fund the projects (in part or whole).

Malaysia and Singapore have been relatively successful in this. Australia is still wanting, and Tanzania is not something I'd say was done well but works for the most part. 
But the use-cases are there, at the very least, for learning.

> As far as "core national backbones" the government has built several 
> over the years including the ARPANET, Defense Data Network, NSFnet, 
> etc.  None of those really helped the consumer except as models for 
> the public networks.  Our service providers have built global 
> backbones that are more resilient and outrun all of those networks 
> because market forces had them do it.  I needed an MPLS circuit from 
> my backbone to Shanghai China recently and I could get that from 
> several service providers at reasonable rates.
> 
> We did get two initiatives to build out access to the home as well as 
> the national backbone.  It is called the Internet.  Backbone speeds 
> increased at the same time access to the home went from dial up to DSL 
> to cable to FTTH.  What's the problem here.

Again, you're looking at it from "where the U.S. came from", which, for all intents and purposes, is where the Internet started. Great! But that does not help other economies today.

And if you consider the ARPANET, NSFnet, e.t.c., while those were not terribly successful from the consumer perspective, in the end, they led to what the commercial Internet looks like today.

Priorities (either at the government or corporate level) have changed a great deal from the early days of the Internet. The amount of investment required to build out nationally in a short span of time is not available in the ways Wall Street (or government research grants) funded "The Boom" in North America.

In developing countries, it leaves very little choice on who is willing to make that investment. That, I can tell you for free :-).

Mark.