Suresh Ramasubramanian wrote:
Having, in India, started off with an internet which was exclusively a government monopoly and only turned over to private enterprise some years down the line, I would say that making it a utility is something that most people here, given the local conditions, would resent,
I agree that any attempt to socialize the Internet would have people screaming bloody murder, but I do believe that the Internet is a utility. In most places, it appears to be a privately-run utility. In some places, it is a government-controlled monopoly where free speech is stifled. In the places where it seems to work best, it seems to be heavily regulated.
I do think we're going to see more cities providing free wireless access in high density areas, like New York City does.
Innovations were driven by bell labs, not exactly att, some on government funded projects to be sure. But increasingly, down the line, by ISPs and their peers in the market. And by content providers, and by CDNs, and by various other entities that haven't ever received a dime in government funding of research.
There have been a lot of players, for sure. Can you help me out, though? While I am aware of many useful things that came out of Bell Labs, I can't think of a single Internet protocol that originated there. Were you thinking of something in particular? The Internet owes a few nods to XEROX PARC (XNS, the precursor of TCP, comes to mind), but I'm drawing a blank for key Internet technologies that came out of Bell Labs.
A technology company in the US that has never received a dime of government money would be an odd duck indeed. Certain branches of the US government buy one of everything.
--hmm
