Slides |
Notes... used by the speaker during the talk. |
The InternetPaul Penfield, Jr.Professor of Electrical Engineering Head, Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science Massachusetts Institute of Technology Cambridge, MA 02139-4307 (617) 253-4601 penfield@mit.edu https://mtlsites.mit.edu/users/penfield/ |
Title SlideThank you for the opportunity to participate in this panel discussion. |
What is the Internet?A network of networks, of different typesIP (Internet Protocol) Can run on many types of communications hardware Copper Wireless Satellite Fiber TV Cable (coax) Can even run on circuit switched networks Packet Switching The distinction from circuit switching less important than it once was |
Slide 1The Internet is for data, not voice. The use of circuit switching is inefficient because of reserved resources that might otherwise be statistically shared. |
Philosophy of the InternetCommunicationsKeep it simple Keep it general Delivery guarantees Best effort End-point hardware Specializes the net to particular tasks Handles errors Everybody welcome Multiple types of traffic coexist Cyberspace is still a frontier, not yet civilized Business models Hard to understand how anyone makes money Fee structure is efficient -- fees aligned with costs |
Slide 2Simple and general mean CHEAP. Fee structure is efficient in part because it is free to users. Nothing is free, of course; the Internet has zero variable cost but relatively high fixed cost. |
Applications of the InternetOriginal idea, from ARPARemote login File Transfer Cooperative computing (Robustness was used as argument to justify funding) Users had other ideas (killer apps) Web Freedom of the Press is no longer only for those who own one Software distribution Future technologies and applications Multicast Push Point-to-point real time (telephony, video) Specialized data types Commerce |
Slide 3Another future technology I forgot to include, FAX |
GovernanceStandardsIETF W3C Resource Allocations InterNIC IANA (IP addresses; now 32 bits, going to 128 bits) Network Solutions, Inc. (domain names) Relaxed Attitude Based on cooperation, respect, and trust Aversion to regulation International aspects National boundaries permeable Are traditional political units still relevant? |
Slide 4The standards bodies really do work. The general high level of trust and cooperation, and general lack of commercial competition have induced participation by very highly qualified people. IETF handles the Internet; the Web Consortium W3C handles the Web. There is participation in both bodies by all the major players. The governance so far is informal -- no regulation to speak of. This has been possible in part because the Internet has been small potatoes. It remains to be seen how long this lack of regulation will persist. |
Serious IssuesIntellectual PropertySecurity Domain Names Governance Censorship Navigation, Resource discovery Overloading Rational business model Importance to society Fragility This week Judge Zobel was let down |
Slide 5Tell them about the Judge's problem, caused by a power failure. It was someone else's industry, not ours. |
War is too important to be left to the GeneralsThe Internet is too important to be left to the engineers.But then, who? Telephone companies never saw it coming They spend most of their income billing the customers They can't even provide U.S. national wireless service Cable companies have the biggest pipe into the home Not robust (my cable modem locks up every couple of days) Politicians don't have a clue Entertainment industry thinks only of one-to-many Equipment suppliers know only what hardware is needed FCC afraid of the industry (e.g. they allowed HDTV interlace) Nations increasingly irrelevant Businessmen don't understand importance of standards Research establishment has best vision They started it, and still know it the best But they couldn't manage their way out of a paper bag Fortunately, no management seems to be necessary! |
Slide 6I've got a lot of cheap shots here -- an insult for everybody in this room. The issue is whom to trust to provide leadership in getting the Internet widely deployed in homes. You have to bring IP, probably at a rate of several hundred kilobits/second, preferably 1.5 Mb/s, into the home. That is the goal. Anything less will not serve the public well. About the phone companies, I seriously think copper loops to residential subscribers couldn't run at the needed rate without being too close to the Shannon limit. There is not enough slack. My personal preference is the cable companies. They have the needed bandwidth. They are having startup problems, and there is a question whether they have the resolve to make the investment. They do not have a lot of capital behind them. When all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail. Just as the telephone companies think of a switched analog service and try to map the Internet onto that, so the entertainment industry sees only passive movies. Their idea of an infrastructure is Cinema 1-2-3-4-5-6-7-8-9-10-infinity. We have seen examples where commercial interests have undercut standards in order to achieve a proprietary differentiation. Just recall what IBM tried to do to ASCII. Today, IP is accepted as THE digital transmission protocol standard. Any plans to deploy competing standards fail to serve the public interest. In this slide I should have included the computer industry. Their idea of reliability is not having to reboot more often than once a day. Now that I have insulted everyone in the room, I will insult my own academic, research community. The only thing that points to success is the observation that the Internet has gotten along very well, thank you, without regulation, commercial direction, or central planning. The creators of the Web did not have to ask anybody's permission to use the Internet, or to develop a new set of protocols -- they just went ahead a did it. So my vision for a winning infrastructure, from an engineering point of view: The standard is IP, supported by all computer manufacturers already. Use fiber to get to the neighborhood; coax to a point inside the house; broadband wireless, perhaps carrier current over the power lines, inside the house. At the head end, avoid going through any switch. The customer's computer is always connected. This infrastructure will let a thousand flowers bloom. Thank you. |