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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