By Dr. Philip Baczewski, Associate Director of Academic Computing

A Brave new Internet?

It's hard to ignore the commercialization of the Internet. I've written about that topic in this column before , and upon reading a recent piece online, the topic once again came to mind. In "The Death Of The Internet, How Industry Intends To Kill The 'Net As We Know It", Jeff Chester argues that broadband service companies attempts to control excessive bandwidth utilization will greatly inhibit the free exchange of text, audio, video and data, and prevent or discourage people from using peer-to-peer file sharing and online streaming media.

Certainly, the concentration of services among a small number of companies does not help promote the competition which would forestall the scenario Chester describes. With AOL, ATT, SBC, and a handful of cable companies as the major players, it is hard to imagine increased competition for online services any time soon. MCI Worldcom has always been a major player both in the U.S. Internet infrastructure and consumer Internet services, but it now is struggling just to stay in existence. Other core service providers like Qwest are hurting from current economic conditions.

This scenario is not good for educational institutions that wish to promote online learning and distance education. If restrictions on streaming media are put in place by service providers, it could get very expensive to offer online courses which include streaming video or live audio. The educational Internet could wind up like educational TV is today -- mostly entertainment to elicit public financial support with a bit of actual coursework offered at off-peak viewing times. In general, however, lack of competition is not good for the continued development of the Internet and the maintenance of the Internet as a truly democratic forum, where information can be exchanged freely by individuals regardless of social standing or economic class.

In spite of the bleak picture painted above, the optimist in me says that all may not yet be lost. When faced with an economic or political barrier, people tend to find a technological alternative (until it is priced or legislated out of existence). So, I'll put my futurist cap on and present another scenario that may not be far from coming to pass.

Wireless to the rescue?

In case you hadn't noticed, wireless technologies are increasingly available in new computing devices (see the Network Connection from May, 2002 ). If you have a handheld computer or a laptop with a wireless card installed, then your computer can connect to a wireless base station which is connected to an Internet network. This frees you from the tether of that network cable which you usually need to connect to the Internet. The range of the wireless network is only a couple hundred feet at best, since it uses low-power general-use radio frequencies.

One characteristic of these wireless devices that you might not be aware of is that given the appropriate software, they can also communicate with each other. This peer-to-peer communication usually requires coordination between those operating both devices, but what if there was software which could automatically sense when another wireless device is in range (there is), and what if wireless devices could automatically form a distributed network to pass information amongst a set of wireless nodes. The kind of distributed networking technology already exists in a number of traditional Internet peer-to-peer programs under development already -- you know -- the ones that Universities and commercial Internet providers are working so hard to repress.

Given a large enough density of wireless devices, a large-bandwidth network could easily be formed. In such a scenario, the mobility of wireless devices would be an advantage, since once a device established itself within new congregation of devices, it would have a chance to disseminate information beyond the limit of a single geographic area. One can imagine a viral model of information transmission, where message are broken up into small bits and the bits are transmitted on the wireless peer network until enough bits reach the intended destination to be rebuilt into a complete message.

A simpler model, however, would be a store and forward network amongst a group of registered wireless peers. This would be particularly useful in passing text messages without the need for a commercial wired backbone. If you think such a concept is a wild futuristic fantasy, then you are too young to remember fidonet. In the days before the Internet, Bulletin Board Systems (BBS) were popular. These were standalone computers with dialup modems which allowed others with computers and modems to connect and exchange e-mail and files (Geesh! I can't believe I am having to define "BBS"! Oh well.) Fidonet was a distributed store and forward network of BBS systems. The way it worked (and UUCP before it) was that late at night, a BBS would phone up another BBS and they would exchange e-mail or files bound for somewhere else on the network. E-mail might have to travel through a number of fidonet hops, but eventually it could get from one end of the country to another. Of particular value were fidonet nodes which had dial access to two or more toll areas or access to a tollfree line.

If by dedicating a bit of space and wireless bandwidth you could gain access to a potentially limitless and free communication channel that might be a price worth paying. Wireless technology has already spawned a bit of an Internet subculture. "Warchalking" is the practice of making chalk marks on a building or sidewalk to indicate the presence of a wireless network. New ideas for overcoming the distance limitations of current wireless technology are also being developed. The latest include reports of a company developing a base station which can reach miles instead of feet and provide a signal that tracks with a device as it moves. By distributing the network amongst millions of devices, the cost is greatly decreased. You even have the potential of using the wired network if base stations are included in the mix.

It is unlikely that wireless technology can be put back in the box. With the work of a few enterprising computer scientists or students (or high school kids), we could eventually see a distributed wireless network that is no longer dependent upon large scale telecommunication backbones (even worse news for Qwest). Potentially, we would have an unregulatable network with the good and bad that comes from that lack of regulation, but with the potential to be a truly populist communication forum. As Miranda might have said, "O brave new Internet, that has such devices in't!"