It sounds pessimistic, i know - but facing reality is sometimes good to draw a better future:
The internet as we know it is about to die.
To make it short and simple: net neutrality is the fact that any information transiting on the network is equal to any other. This simple principle ensure people that no information would be considered pre-eminent by any of the internet gatekeeper. You can read a better definition of the Net Neutrality on Wikipedia
This simple principle is at risk.
There has been some warning since the early 2000’s - some said it was not relevant, some said it was… but let’s face it: big organisation want to be the gate keeper of the internet - what could possibly stop them from doing discrimination? People reaction, of course. But we can see day after day that such political action is far from reaching its own set goals.
And what if net neutrality was not going to be the decisive topic of the next us elections (there is a very few chances that this notion of neutrality grab the mind of the average american) - is there really a front here in Europe which could politically oppose such move (and understand it)?
What would be left to normal people?
More important: how would we be able to rebuild what would have been destroyed?
The only alternative I can see today has been suggested last night; there was a meeting of Node London at Gasworks and someone was speaking of the implementation of a wireless alternative to the wired internet as we know it.
No tips on by who or how this global wireless network would be run - but the suggestion just caught my attention and my imagination for the rest of the meeting and a part of the night.
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Here is the picture as I imagine it - this is simply a very basic scenario and is intently thought provoking:
Wireless technology let us set-up had-hoc network for a very cheap price. More and more machines comes with descent software allowing their user to share documents on a local network - simply put: running an Apache server is a few click away on an OS X machine, for example, and most Windows are coming their IIS server.
From that point we could perfectly imagine super local network, with content you would provide to your immediate neighbours, and little by little to their neighbours, and theirs, and theirs, and theirs…
Cities could be connected just by the good will of people - actually not sharing something they are paying for, but sharing a connection to someone else. And also the content could be very handpicked in the sense that it is addressed in a more tangible manner to people they know.
Of course it sounds quite irrealistic technically at the moment, but…
How would IP addresses be assigned? Also there would be geographic gaps; it’s easy in a big urban area to imagine such a high density of nodes that it could cover a whole city and why not its suburbs - of course in rural parts it would be harder to connect the dot and make a descent grid.Nonetheless I can remember some experiments in Lausanne, Switzerland were creating network bridge over hills (up and down could be the second name of Lausanne) on quite big distance… I guess there’s not only in Lausanne that people are crossing geographical gaps with wireless network.
Let’s also consider the experience gained by P2P developer’s in the fields of had-hoc networking; if a few people could get their hands on such a project - it could be a nice alternative to the internet.
Future is bright and it finally doesn’t have to be Orange.
The concept is not new and has many echoes in the network history; lots of people have thought on this for quite a long time and Pierre kindly suggested a few links:
Wireless Mesh Network which examines more precisely the feasibility of such had-hoc network on a large scale.
Net Equality is an organisation in the US which aim is to provide ‘free internet access for low-income communities. We provide planning, deployment resources and internet mesh products worldwide and install free network hardware in qualified communities in the Pacific Northwest.’
It’s also the topic of a novel by C. Doctorow, “Someone Comes to Town, Someone leaves Town” -you can download it from: http://craphound.com/someone/download.php
