BBS in a Box 7/BBS in a Box - Macintosh - Volume VII (BBS in a Box) (January 1993).iso/Files/Word/E-G/EFF1.3.0.cpt/EFF1.3.0/great.work

Text File | 1992-08-03 | 17KB | 350 lines

                         The Great Work
          For the January, 1992  Electronic Frontier column
                 in Communications of the ACM
                      by John Perry Barlow

Earlier in this century, the French philosopher and anthropologist
Teilhard de Chardin wrote that evolution was an ascent toward what
he called "The Omega Point," when all consciousness would converge
into unity, creating the collective organism of Mind. When I first
encountered the Net, I had forgotten my college dash through
Teilhard's Phenomenon of Man. It took me a while to remember where
I'd first encountered the idea of this immense and gathering
organism.

Whether or not it represents Teilhard's vision, it seems clear we
are about some Great Work here...the physical wiring of collective
human consciousness. The idea of connecting every mind to every
other mind in full-duplex broadband is one which, for a hippie
mystic like me, has clear theological implications, despite the
ironic fact that most of the builders are bit wranglers and
protocol priests, a proudly prosaic lot. What Thoughts will all
this assembled neurology, silicon, and optical fiber Think?

Teilhard was a Roman Catholic priest who never tried to forge a
SLIP connection, so his answers to that question were more
conventionally Christian than mine, but it doesn't really matter.
We'll build it and then we'll find out.

And however obscure our reasons, we do seem determined to build it.
Since 1970, when the Arpanet was established, it has become, as
Internet, one of the largest and fastest growing creations in the
history of human endeavor. Internet is now expanding as much as 25%
a month, a curve which plotted on a linear trajectory would put
every single human being online in a few decades.

Or, more likely, not. Indeed, what we seem to be making at the
moment is something which will unite only the corporate, military,
and academic worlds, excluding the ghettos, hick towns, and suburbs
where most human minds do their thinking. We are rushing toward a
world in which there will be Knows, constituting the Wired Mind,
and the Know Nots, who will count for little but the labor and
consumption necessary to support it.

If that happens, the Great Work will have failed, since,
theological issues aside, its most profound consequence should be
the global liberation of everyone's speech. A truly open and
accessible Net will become an environment of expression which no
single government could stifle.

When Mitch Kapor and I first founded the Electronic Frontier
Foundation, we were eager to assure that the rights established by
the First Amendment would be guaranteed in Cyberspace. But it
wasn't long before we realized that in such borderless terrain, the
First Amendment is a local ordinance.

While we haven't abandoned a constitutional strategy in assuring
free digital commerce, we have also come to recognize that, as
Mitch put it, "Architecture is politics." In other words, if the
Net is ubiquitous, affordable, easy to access, tunnelled with
encrypted passageways, and based on multiple competitive channels,
no local tyranny will be very effective against it.

A clear demonstration of this principle was visible during the
recent coup in the Soviet Union. Because of the decentralized and
redundant nature of digital media, it was impossible for the
geriatric plotters in the Kremlin to suppress the delivery of
truth. Faxes and e-mail messages kept the opposition more current
with developments than the KGB, with its hierarchical information
systems, could possibly be. Whatever legal restraints the aspiring
dictators might have imposed were impotent against the natural
anarchy of the Net.

Well, I could have myself a swell time here soliloquizing about
such notions as the Great Work or the assurance of better living
through electronics, but all great journeys proceed by tedious
increments. Though the undertaking is grand, it is the nuts and
bolts...the regulatory and commercial politics, the setting of
standards, the technical acceleration of bits...that matter. They
are so complex and boring as to erode the most resolute enthusiasm,
but if they don't get done, It doesn't.

So we need to be thinking about what small steps must be undertaken
today. Even while thinking globally, we must begin, as the bumper
sticker fatuously reminds us, by acting locally. Which is why I
will focus the remainder of this column on near-term conditions,
opportunities, and preferred courses of action within the
boundaries of the United States.

To a large extent, America is the Old Country of Cyberspace. The
first large interconnected networks were developed here as was much
of the supporting technology. Leaving aside the estimable French
Minitel system, Cyberspace is, in is present condition, highly
American in culture and language. Though fortunately this is
increasingly less the case, much of the infrastructure of the Net
still sits on American soil. For this reason, the United States
remains the best place to enact the policies upon which the global
electronic future will be founded.

In the opinion of the Electronic Frontier Foundation, the first
order of business is the creation of what we call the National
Public Network...named with the hope that the word "National"
should become obsolete as soon as possible. By this, we mean a
ubiquitous digital web, accessible to every American in practical,
economic, and functional terms.  This network would convey, in
addition to traditional telephone service, e-mail, software, faxes,
such multimedia forms of communication as "video postcards," and,
in time, High Definition Television as well as other media as yet
barely imagined.

Its services should be extended by a broad variety of providers,
including the existing telephone, cable, publishing, broadcast, and
digital network companies. Furthermore, if its architecture is
appropriately open to free enterprise, we can expect the emergence
of both new companies and new kinds of companies. Properly
designed, the National Public Network will constitute a market for
goods and services which will make the $100 billion a year personal
computer business look like a precursor to the Real Thing.

As a first step, we are proposing that Congress and state agencies
establish regulatory mechanisms and incentives that will:

   Establish an open platform for information services by speedy
nation-wide deployment of "Personal ISDN".

   Ensure competition in local exchange services in order to
provide equitable access to communications media.

   Promote free expression by reaffirming principles of common
carriage.

   Foster innovations that make networks and information services
easier to use.

   Protect personal privacy.

That's a tall bill, most of which I will have to take up in
subsequent columns. I will focus now on the first two.


Personal ISDN

For the last two years, the Internet community has generally
regarded Senator Albert Gore's proposed National Research and
Education Network as the next major component of the Great Work.
This has been regrettable. NREN, as presently envisioned, would do
little to enable the settlement of ordinary folks in Cyberspace.
Rather it would make plusher accommodations for the "mountain men"
already there.

Actually, NREN has been and may continue to be useful as a "policy
testbed." By giving Congress a reason to study such legal connundra
as unregulated common carriage and the intermingling of public and
private networks, NREN may not be a waste of time and focus.  But,
as of this writing, it has become a political football. If the
House version (H656) of the High Performance Computing Act passes
with Dick Gephart's "Buy American" provisions in it, the
Administration will surely veto it, and we'll be back to Square
One.

Meanwhile,  ISDN, a technology available today, has languished.
ISDN or Integrated Services Digital Network is a software-based
system based on standard digital switching. Using ISDN, an ordinary
copper phone line can provide two full-duplex 64 kbs digital
channels. These can be used independently,  concurrently, and
simultaneously for voice and/or data. (Actually,  it's a bit more
complex than that. Garden variety ISDN contains three channels. The
third is a 16 kbs "signal" channel, used for dialing and other
services.)


It isn't new technology, and, unlike fiber and wireless systems, it
requires little additional infrastructure beyond the digital
switches, which most telcos, under an FCC mandate, have installed
anyway or will install soon. Even at the currently languid
development rate, the telcos estimate that 60% of the nation's
phones could be ISND ready in two years.

While those who live their lives at the end of a T1 connection may
consider 64 kbs to be a glacial transfer rate, the vast majority of
digital communications ooze along at a pace twenty-seven times
slower, or 2400 baud. We believe that the ordinary modem is both
too slow and too user-hostile to create "critical mass" in the
online market.

We also believe that ISDN, whatever its limitations, is rapid
enough to jump start the greatest free market the world has ever
known. Widespread deployment of ISDN, combined with recent
developments in compression technology, could break us out of what
Adobe's John Warnock calls the "ascii jail", delivering to the home
graphically rich documents, commercial software objects, and real-
time multimedia. Much of the information which is now
inappropriately wedged into physical objects...whether books,
shrink-wrapped software, videos, or CD's...would enter the virtual
world, its natural home. Bringing consumers to Cyberspace would
have the same invigorating effect on online technology which the
advent of the PC had on computing.

We admit that over the long term only fiber has sufficient
bandwidth for the future we imagine. But denying "civilian" access
to Cyberspace until the realization of a megabillion buck end-to-
end fiber network leaves us like the mainframe users in the 60's
waiting for the supercomputer. The real juice came not from the Big
Iron but from user adaptable consumer "toys" like the Apple II and
the original PC.

Just as consumers were oblivious to the advantages of FAX
technology until affordable equipment arrived, we believe there is
a great sleeping demand for both ISDN and the tools which will
exploit it. And then there's the matter of affording the full fiber
national network. Until the use of digital services has become as
common as, say, the use of VCR's, Joe Sixpack's willingness to help
pay fiber's magnificent cost will be understandably restrained.

Given that most personal modem users are unaware that ISDN even
exists while the old elite of Internet grossly underestimates its
potential benefits, it's not surprising that the telcos have been
able to claim lack of consumer demand in their reluctance to make
it available. A cynic might also point to its convenience as a
hostage in their struggles with Judge Green and the newspaper
publishers. They wanted into the information business and something
like "Allow us to be information providers  or we starve this
technology," has been one of their longest levers.

This issue should now be moot. Judge Greene ruled in July that the
telcos could start selling information. They got what they wanted.
Now we must make them honor their side of the bargain.

Unfortunately it still seems they will only let us use their
playing field if they can be guaranteed to win the game. To this
end, they have managed to convince several state Public Utility
Commissions that they should be allowed to charge tariffs for ISDN
delivery which are grotesquely disproportionate to its actual
costs. In Illinois, for example, customers are paying 10 to 12
cents a minute for an ISDN connection. This, despite evidence that
the actual telco cost of a digitally switched phone connection,
whether voice or data, runs at about a penny a minute. Even in the
computer business, 1200% is not an ethical gross margin. And yet
the telcos claim that more appropriate pricing would require
pensioners to pay for the plaything of a few computer geeks.

Unfortunately, the computer industry has been either oblivious to
the opportunities which ISDN presents or reluctant to enter the
regulatory fray before Congress, the FCC, and the PUC's. The latter
is understandable. National telecommunications policy has long been
an in-house project of AT&T. It is brain-glazingly prolix by design
and is generally regarded as a game you can't win unless you're on
the home team. The AT&T breakup changed all that, but the industry
has been slow to catch on.

Assurance of Local Competition

In the wake of Ma Bell's dismemberment, the world is a richer and
vastly more complex place. Who provides what services to whom, and
under what conditions, is an open question in most local venues.
Even with a scorecard you can't tell the players since many of them
don't exist yet.

Legislation is presently before the Edward Markey's (D-MA)
Subcommittee on Telecommunications and Finance (a subset of the
House Energy and Commerce Committee) which would regulate the entry
of the Regional Bells into the information business. The committee
is correctly concerned that the RBOC's will use their
infrastructure advantage to freeze out information providers. In
other words, rather as Microsoft uses DOS and Windows.

Somewhat hysterical over this prospect, the Newspaper Publishers
Association and the cable television companies have seen to the
introduction of a House Bill 3515 by Rep. Jim Cooper (D-TN) which
would essentially cripple telco delivery of information services
for the next decade. The bill would bar existing telephone service
providers from information provision until 50% of subscribers in a
given area had access to alternative infrastructures.

Of course neither approach would serve the public interest. The
telcos have had so little experience with competition that we can't
expect them to welcome it. And while eventually there will be local
phone connection competition through wireless technologies, it's
silly to wait until that distant day.

We need a bill which would require the telcos to make ISDN open and
affordable to all information providers, conditioning their entry
into the information business to the willing delivery of such
service.

The computer industry has an opportunity to break the gridlock
between the telcos and the publishers. By representing consumer
interests, which are, in this case, equivalent to our own, we can
shape legislation which would be to everyone's benefit. What's been
missing in the debate has been technical expertise which serves
neither of the existing contenders.

Finally, the Public Utilities Commissions seem unaware of the
hidden potential demand for digital services to the home. What on
earth would a housewife want with a 64 kbs data line? This is
another area in which both consumers and computer companies need to
be heard from.


What You Can Do

Obviously, the first task upon entering a major public campaign is
informing oneself and others. In this, many Communications readers
have a great advantage. Most of us have access to such online fora
as RISKS digest, Telecom Digest, and the EFFectors regularly
published in the EFF's newsgroup comp.org.eff.news. I strongly
recommend that those interested in assisting this effort begin
monitoring those newsgroups. I'm tempted to tell you to join the
EFF and support our Washington lobbying efforts, but I probably
abuse this podium with our message too much as it is.

Once you're up to speed on these admittedly labyrinthine issues,
there are three levers you can start leaning against.

First, Congress will be actively studying these matters for the
remainder of the year and is eagerly soliciting viewpoints other
than those self-servingly extended by the telcos and the
publishers. Rep. Markey said recently in a letter to the EFF,

"Please let me and my staff know what policies you and
others in the computer industry believe would best
serve the public interest in creating a reasonably
priced, widely available network, in which competition
is open and innovation is rewarded. I also want to
learn what lessons from the computer industry over the
past 10 to 15 years should apply to the current debate
on structuring the information and communication
networks of the future."

Second, it is likely that the Public Utility Commission in your
state will be taking up the question of ISDN service and rates
sometime in the next year. They will likely be grateful for your
input.

Finally, you can endeavor to make your own company aware of the
opportunities which ISDN deployment will provide it as well as the
political obstacles to its provision. No matter what region of the
computer business employs your toils, ISDN will eventually provide
a new market for its products.

Though these matters are still on the back pages of public
awareness, we are at the threshold of one of the great passages in
the history of both computing and telecommunications. This is the
eve of the electronic frontier's first land rush, a critical moment
for The Great Work.


Pinedale, Wyoming
Friday, November 15, 1991