BBC NEWS | Technology | Web inventor warns of ‘dark’ net — Let the phone and cable companies take care of this. What’s the worse that can happen?
The web should remain neutral and resist attempts to fragment it into different services, web inventor Sir Tim Berners-Lee has said.
Recent attempts in the US to try to charge for different levels of online access web were not “part of the internet model,” he said in Edinburgh.
He warned that if the US decided to go ahead with a two-tier internet, the network would enter “a dark period”.
Sadly it seems inevitable that the net will be subdivided. There is just to much money involved for every one to leave it alone.
Not that I’m saying you won’t be sticking to your guns, but you’ll have a audible grunt when you see your hits going down 😉
I hope he got the OK from Al Gore.
Did Al Gore invent global warming or just discover it?
Bandwidth, like all good things in life, is limited. My office LAN slows down when a couple of people decide to downstream music and videos all day long. So there is a problem. Economics was invented to manage limited resources. But, again, like everything else, there is a dark side to the light side. What about putting data meters on people’s internet pipe going into the home/business. People would pay a rate for the amount of bandwidth they consume, like the gas and electric companies do. So, instead of corporations taking control of our downloads, WE control our downloads. Just a thought.
I think its time we hand over the internet to the british. At first i was like no , but our country is too sensitive to the coorporate needs. We created it , but if we dont give it up, we will destroy it. And dont forget the internet will be given over, unless you own some rich lobbyists.
@david
We currently do pay for this—IT IS CALLED UNLIMITED bandwidth packages!!!!
That was the whole point made about this. The Telcos are already charging us for the bandwidth, and now they want to double charge for it.
Why would telcos or cable operators give a rar’s patoot id the internet entered a dark period? When was the last time any conglomerate showed any social responsibilty? Somebody, please refresh me!
It will be segmented…corporations will have more controls and get more profitable, governments around the world will have more controls in place to define what sort of content their citizens will be allowed access to too.
The Net already is subdivided. I’ve been on broadband for several years, and my use of the Internet has become moulded by this fact. Speed restrictions placed on dial-up surfers makes their Internet a quite different experience as compared to mine.
#6. Les, “Unlimited” is a marketing gimmick. That’s like selling a toilet with unlimited flushes or AOL passing around CD-ROMs with 77 MILLION FREE seconds of introductory internet usage. The formula is based on LIMITED usage which is all the infrastructure was designed to carry. The toilet works because a city’s population is not flushing at exactly the same time, cell towers work because everyone is not talking on their cell phones 24/7 (females should pay an extra gab tax for their abusive cell usage, btw), and the internet works because everyone is not continously downloading at T1 bit rates. (If they did, they would be charged for a T1– a thousand dollars a month to GUARANTEE that 1,54Mb rate). It’s all based on LIMITED bandwidth and limited people using them. You want unlimited? Get a T1, or a T3 for that matter.
#4 My office LAN slows down when a couple of people decide to downstream music and videos all day long. So there is a problem.
Yeah, there is a problem there… on a couple levels.
#4 People would pay a rate for the amount of bandwidth they consume, like the gas and electric companies do.
Access is already “tiered” at the receiving end – dial-up, DSL, Cable. Why do they want to have tiered access at the sending end? [the answer is directly-related to your office example]
How can Comcast [my ISP] justify charging Apple’s iTMS more to download a 285Kb music-file at 3-Mbps, than at 1-Mbps??
Their existing equipment can handle speeds much higher than I am currently paying for – because they are ready & waiting to sell me a bandwidth-increase, at any time. But, I’m not buying…
And that is the key… the ISPs can provide higher speeds anytime they want, but most people are happy with the status quo. If ISPs can’t get us to spend more for faster speeds – they want to find a way to charge more for existing speeds.
The ISPs are arguing that Google, Yahoo, Amazon, etc should be paying for the “bandwidth” they use – but an individual search doesn’t use much bandwidth, and spam is a much larger load on the backbone systems. Threatening to slow search/purchase packets would be a toothless threat – unless it dropped to sub-56Kbps speeds…
The ISPs are just using the current money-making companies as a share-the-wealth smoke-screen to get tiered-pricing accepted. Then, they will make a killing when all of the [not so distant] future tech – which requires broadband speeds – starts being marketed.
With Apple’s iTMS now selling TV-shows individually, as a package of the entire season, and as pre-paid “season passes” to upcoming shows – how much more vulnerable are they to ISP extortion than Google??
John touts IPTV – but how viable will that be if it can’t pay “highway robbery” for adequate bandwidth?
This is all corporations wanting the gov’t to protect thier old business models through legislation. VoIP is the biggest catalyst because that undermines the primary business model of the telcos. Instead of how free enterprise works where a company must change their business plan in the face of market changes, we get this crap.
Its all part of the way of the 21st Century: all the changes to the way patents, copyright and other laws are impeding the progress of technology. If the record companies had their way there would have been no audio cassettes, let alone digital media. Same for the VCR.
The internet is evolving every year. New uses for it, new ideas. New communications! In fifty years it will continue to eveolve and to become more useful. Unless the TELCOs get their way. Which they will, becuae they have the cash.
#10 It’s all based on LIMITED bandwidth and limited people using them.
Huh?
Even Cable, which is setup as a WAN – so all the households share the bandwidth allocated for that section of the ISP’s network – has greater-than-sold bandwidth capacity.
It shouldn’t apply at all to DSL or fiber-based systems [Verizon’s FiOS, etc] – which aren’t setup as a WAN – because their upsteam infrastructure is also sized for selling upgrades
Why should Verizon get any sympathy from me [or money from Google, Yahoo, Amazon, etc] while they are building a fiber-based network – with mind-boggling bandwidth capacity – which they then market as having a higher bandwidth-maximum than my current ISP – but at a lower cost to me – and then whine that “destination sites” should pay to use that massive bandwidth because poor, little Verizon is “carrying their water”?
#11. “How can Comcast [my ISP] justify charging Apple’s iTMS more to download a 285Kb music-file at 3-Mbps, than at 1-Mbps??”
Mike, this is where a system based on bits consumed is fair. Let’s make bits the energy source while ISPs serve only as the utility companies. They will charge a base fee for support of the infrastructure to get bits into your home. How many bits you consume is up to you, but what you use you will be charged for. For instance, in your example above, Comcast would not charge you for how fast you downloaded the 285Kb file (this would be part of the base fee, and I say let’s give everyone a FAT pipe) BUT rather the bits you download, in this case 285Kb. It is sort of like buying minutes on the cell phone network. The future of the internet would be based on buying bits. This would help tremendously in cutting back in spam because the cost would be incurred on us (and politicians) and it will make us angry to demand a law to protect us. Just like the anti-faxing law which wasted customers’ paper and not the marketing company’s, a tough law would put spam artists in jail or heavily fined. Also, people would cut back on unnecessary downloads and websites with garbage content. The internet quality would become better. Content would have to be good when content has a price. Another benefit would be websites PAYING US to view their content (by giving us free bit credits or other incentives). How many would read this blog if we had to pay a dollar for every Megabits downloaded?
#14 They will charge a base fee for support of the infrastructure to get bits into your home. How many bits you consume is up to you, but what you use you will be charged for.
What?
The “bits” aren’t being produced by the ISP, like electricity or gas is produced by the utilities. The “bits” are not a finite resource which can be sold at market-rates.
The “bits” are produced by a third-party – which make their revenue from ad sales, or subscription fees.
Why should the ISPs get anything more than the “base fees to support infrastructure” plus reasonble profit margin?? They are pure middle-men, who produce no content themselves.
Adding an arbitrarily-determined “bit-tax” on downloads makes about as much sense as all the “sin-taxes” on alcohol & cigarettes, or the idea we need to boost the Federal gas tax to reduce consumption – but in this case, the money does not go to public causes, but to private coffers.
#14 This would help tremendously in cutting back in spam because the cost would be incurred on us (and politicians) and it will make us angry to demand a law to protect us.
I normally eschew personnal attacks, but: You are insane…
The Telco’s BEFORe the Internet HIT…
aimed at a 6% coverage/USE…That in a 24 hour period that 100% of the lines would be used, mostly during business hours…
After the internet took over, it WENT to 80% use, and they had to add ALOT of extra lines, FAST… It took Portland Or, 2 years to catch up.
But this is on a VERY NARROW spectrum.
IF you REALLy think about it, and what signals ARE, and then add DIGITAL.
the HIGHEr the frequency the MORE data per channel. channel numbers look like this….800.000mhz-800.025mhz thats 2 channels…ADD digital encapsulation, and EACh channel can carry ABOUT 200 carriers/SUBchannels/people on it…
So the STATEMENT that its limited, is FALSE…AS the HIGHER channels can carry even MORE subchannels/people with the SAME bandwidth. AND then something ELSE comes into play…After 40-60 miles you can REUSE the same channels/subchannels OVEr and OVER again, with very little interferrance.
But this is WIRELESS… This is NOT that LITTLE wire that RUNS to your home, for your PHONE…
THEN comes something ELSE to think about…
SERIAL, Parallel, and BINARY, OCT, HEX, signals patterns.
this is NOT the OLD, 300 buad Binary PHONE system. 0011, 0001, 000, SYSTEM… We can go to a FULL HEXidecimal or HIGHER system to send and recieve data, FASTER…so that ffff, and 01fe can be sent and MEAN something.
#16 So the STATEMENT that its limited, is FALSE…
The same holds true for fiber-optic lines. Their maximum capacity keeps being increased by each new generation of electronics, at either end of the lines. Which is why all that “dark fiber” is staying dark – even as traffic levels increase – because the increases can be carried on the existing lines.
#14 Comcast would not charge you for how fast you downloaded the 285Kb file (this would be part of the base fee, and I say let’s give everyone a FAT pipe) BUT rather the bits you download, in this case 285Kb. It is sort of like buying minutes on the cell phone network.
David, I just don’t understand why you want to give everyone a “fat pipe”, and then penalize them for using that bandwidth.
How much of a tax would my friends & family have to pay each time I updated the photos on my web-page?
How much would the tax be for downloading the frequent updates to virus-scaning software? For downloading software and OS updates? For buying software online.
And – more importantly – who would be reaping the windfall from that tax??
Why does this guy want to regulate the internet?
Its like you read my thoughts! You appear to grasp so much approximately this, such as
you wrote the book in it or something. I feel that you simply
can do with some percent to power the message house a little bit, however other
than that, this is fantastic blog. A great read.
I’ll definitely be back.