Exploding Digital Clouds to save the Net

Continueing the theme of posts supporting the title of this blog, the Standford University law professor Larry Lessig is arguing that the city WiFi digital clouds exploding over cities in the US, and around the world, could provide the last mile access to the internet. This could keep this last mile out of the "proprietary control" of the established carriers, preserving net neutrality, and thwarting any attempts to start creating a multi-tier internet.

A multi-tier internet is one where carriers charge different rates for prioritised delivery of data, in other words the more you pay the greater the priority your traffic gets. Note that this is different from the pay more for greater bandwidth situation which is common today.

So is a multi-tier internet a bad thing? Lessig certainly thinks so on the grounds that this would hurt the next generation of internet start ups, (note the clouds exploding reference) he says;

"There's an explosion in municipal mesh networks... as you see the clouds exploding above the cities and people unify them, the last mile is solved. The last mile is provided free of proprietary control,"

I for one entirely agree with him. Keeping systems as open as possible are the best way to allow the whole world to benefit from new ideas and innovations. Not closed systems that just support the revenue streams of a few infrastructure companies

First seen on The Register