| Chapter 1: | A Global, Low-Cost Network Thrives |
“While society as a whole would be likely to benefit from a networking nirvana, the markets are unlikely to get there by 2020 due to incumbent business models, insufficient adoption of new cost-compensation methods, and insufficient sociotechnical abilities to model human trust relationships in the digital world,” wrote Pekka Nikander of Ericcson Research, the Internet Architecture Board, and the Helsinki Institute for Information Technology.
Brian T. Nakamoto of Everyone.net wrote, “Companies will cling to old business models and attempt to extend their life by influencing lawmakers to pass laws that hinder competition.”
Ian Peter, Australian leader of the Internet Mark II Project, wrote, “The problem of the digital divide is too complex and the power of legacy telco regulatory regimes too powerful to achieve this utopian dream globally within 15 years.”
—Ross Rader, director of research and innovation, Tucows, Inc.
Peter Kim, senior analyst with Forrester Research, agrees. “Profit motives will impede data flow,” he wrote. “Although interconnectivity will be much higher than ever imagined, networks will conform to the public utility model with stakeholders in generation, transmission, and distribution. Companies playing in each piece of the game will enact roadblocks to collect what they see as their fair share of tariff revenue.”
Will There Be a New or Different Network by Then?
Fred Baker of Cisco Systems, chairman of the board of the Internet Society, posed the possibility that “other varieties of networks” might “replace” the current network. “