From: "E. ALLEN SMITH" <EALLENSMITH@ocelot.Rutgers.EDU>
Date: Tue, 7 May 1996 14:06:56 +0800
To: cypherpunks@toad.com
Subject: More on Internet connections
Message-ID: <01I4E4CDI28M8Y583T@mbcl.rutgers.edu>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain


From:	IN%"rre@weber.ucsd.edu"  6-MAY-1996 01:36:44.84
From: Phil Agre <pagre@weber.ucsd.edu>
Subject: Options for Internet and Broadband Access

=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
This message was forwarded through the Red Rock Eater News Service (RRE).
Send any replies to the original author, listed in the From: field below.
You are welcome to send the message along to others but please do not use
the "redirect" command.  For information on RRE, including instructions
for (un)subscribing, send an empty message to  rre-help@weber.ucsd.edu
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=

Date: Fri, 3 May 1996 10:05:08 EST
From: Tim Leshan <LESHAN@ksgrsch.harvard.edu>
To: IIPLIST@ksgrsch.harvard.edu
Subject: Announcement and Call for Participation

                             Freedom Forum
                                
           Harvard Information Infrastructure Project
                                
                    National Economic Council
                                
                    U.S. Department of Energy
                                
                                
                                
                      "THE FIRST 100 FEET"
                                
            OPTIONS FOR INTERNET AND BROADBAND ACCESS
                                
                                
                       October 29-30, 1996
                        The Freedom Forum
                       Arlington, Virginia
                                
                                
             Announcement and Call for Participation
          
     
     This conference looks at options for Internet and broadband
access from the perspective of home owners, apartment complexes,
and small businesses.  It will evaluate opportunities and
obstacles for "bottom-up" infrastructure development and the
implications for traditional and alternative providers at the
neighborhood, regional, and national levels.  We are seeking
original analysis, position papers, and background material for
use in the conference program, on the project website, and in a
book to be published in early 1997.
     
     The conference challenges business and policymakers to
rethink fundamental issues in telecommunications policy by
recasting the "problem of the last 100 feet" as "opportunities
for the first 100 feet."  This paradigm shift suggests
consumer/property owner investment as an answer to the dilemma of
whether there should be one or two wires into the home.  The
conference will survey alternative options for local connection
to the Internet from the perspective of homeowners with high-end
needs for data communications, apartment owners, small
businesses, and others with an interest in investing in end-user
equipment and real estate.  It will consider prospects for
broadly distributed infrastructure investment and potential roles for
utility companies, special assessment districts, municipalities,
PCS providers, CAPs, IXCs, LMDS operators, and Internet access
providers, as well as telcos and cable companies.  It will 
consider strategies and policies for local interconnection and
interoperability among Internet access providers.
     
     The conference will investigate constraints on and
incentives for user infrastructure investment at federal, state,
and local levels; whether and how trenching, conduit, and right-
of-ways should be unbundled to promote consumer/property owner
investment and competition among heterogeneous providers; and
the need for and feasibility of interconnection at third-party or
publicly maintained neighborhood access points.  It will look at
synergy with other policy goals and economic interests, such as
intelligent transportation systems (ITS) and energy demand
management.  Finally, in assessing user investment as a driver
for two-way broadband, it asks how scenarios for Internet access
will affect broadband scenarios by stimulating demand for
high-bandwidth connectivity.
     
Rationale
     
     The growth of the Internet has been propelled in significant
part by user investments in infrastructure: computers, internal
wiring, and the connection (dial-up line, leased line, microwave
link) to the Internet service provider.  This "bottom-up"
investment minimizes the investment burden facing service
providers, since customers share the cost of the infrastructure
and providers have no obligation to develop the infrastructure
out to all potential users.  Barriers to entry for service
providers are low, and users retain flexibility in choosing among
providers.
     
     The rapidly growing mass of Internet users, applications,
and resources is now shaping demand for underlying
infrastructure, so that plans for new infrastructure are driven
increasingly by data rather than voice and video.  There are
opportunities to attract new customers instead of competing head-
on for old ones.  Unlike voice and video, there are incremental
upgrade paths for data users and demand for upgraded access is
readily stimulated by experience.  Higher bandwidth connections
are desired by a wide spectrum of users, from those who work at
home to recreational users of the World Wide Web.
     
     The value of continuous, rather than dial-up connection to
the Internet, is less widely appreciated because it is a
qualitative improvement. Continuous connectivity (which can be
provided by unswitched technologies) obviates tying up a
telephone line, enables instant delivery of email and other
time-sensitive information, and allows small businesses to
advertise and publish directly to the net. Most importantly, it
can enable real-time energy management with attendant cost
savings that can support major infrastructure investment, which
the advent of residential "wheeling" may induce consumers to make
on their own.  A personal computer or an inexpensive router could
serve as a gateway extending Internet functions to other
computers in the home, manage utility demand, operate security
systems, and control any lights, sound equipment, and other
household appliances.
     
     As telecommunications and electric utilities are
deregulated, investment decisions will devolve into the hands of
consumers, where they can be made with greater knowledge of
particular benefits and tradeoffs.  At the same time, new
technologies, such as wireless and data transmission over power
lines, will increase consumer options. There may be a variety of
options for configuring "the last mile," with different balances
between user-provided and centrally provided facilities.
Homeowners and small businesses may have opportunities to connect
to different suppliers at the curb, on the roof, on the side of
the house, or somewhere in between.
     
     The early government role and subsequent commercial
practices have facilitated interconnection of Internet service
providers, but the limited choices at the local level -- the
"last mile" as well as the "last 100 feet" -- may make
interconnection an issue.  At present, many local Internet access
providers do not interconnect directly and traffic is sometimes
routed to one of  the few national exchange points hundreds of
miles away.  Opportunities for interconnection, along with
policies on access, may determine whether intermediary transport
providers, such as utility companies, emerge to link homeowner
facilities at the curb with high-bandwidth Internet service
providers.
     
     This analysis of "the first hundred feet" recognizes that
need and demand will naturally vary greatly from  home to home
and from neighborhood to neighborhood.  Much depends on whether
there are business or telecommuting needs that can be met by
individual investments in upgraded access.  While this analysis
looks to the Internet, it raises the issue of how the bottom-up
model will affect the traditional model of a centrally provided
universal service.  Given basic technology that is non-
proprietary and virtually commoditized, some argue that Internet
service is becoming the common denominator platform on which all
other services can be carried.  The absence of service
class priority has hampered use of real-time voice and video on
the Internet, but this will soon change with the implementation
of protocols that allow bandwidth reservation and packet-level
service priority (RSVP and IPv6).
     
                              ****
                                
     We encourage submission of position papers as well
independent analysis.  It is expected that papers will be posted
for review and revised promptly after the conference for
non-exclusive publication.  (The book will be part of the Harvard
Information Infrastructure Project series published by MIT
Press.)  To ensure consideration for the program, please submit
abstracts or outlines by June 20, 1996.
     
     Please direct submissions and requests for future mailings
to:
     
     Tim Leshan
     Coordinator, Information Infrastructure Project
     Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University
     79 JFK Street
     Cambridge, MA  02138
     617-496-1389; Fax: 617-495-5776
     leshan@ksgrsch.harvard.edu
     
For additional information and updates see
http://ksgwww.harvard.edu/iip/first.html    
Tim Leshan
IIP Project Coordinator
http://ksgwww.harvard.edu/iip/