purple motes

Economic activity is not distributed uniformly (or randomly) across space. Economic activity has long been highly concentrated in cities. Moreover, larger city size is associated with a greater rate of innovation.[1] The exact mechanism by which concentration of person in geographic space fosters innovation is not well-understood, but the effect is clear.

Community-based networks, such as open public local access networks (OPLANs), make cities more important features of network macro-geography. In discussions of investments in community-based networks, interconnection between community-based networks tends to receive relatively little attention. That's unfortunate. Just as the a city's relationship to ports, airports, and interstate highways has a major effect on its development, the same is true for a community network in relation to more geographically comprehensive network structures.

What about geography at the scale of community-based networks? Malcolm J. Matson, who developed the concept of an OPLAN in 1984, has emphasized that an OPLAN has a more uniform topography than the historical telco switching-office hierarchy. Two typical characteristics of an OPLAN are:

• service and content ‘providers’ are not differentiated from service and content ‘consumers’. Any party connected to or using the OPLAN can freely assume either role. ...
• global connectivity beyond the OPLAN is achieved (as at present) through any telecoms operator or ISP who directly or via an interconnect agreement, has access to a trunk fibre (or satellite) which serves any building (subject to planning constraints) connected to the OPLAN (i.e. the OPLAN is ‘unbundled end-to-end’)[2]

The ideal is that "any point on the network is as good a place for content or application origination as any other."[3] The intention seems to be to avoid the economic power that control of end-offices gives telcos.

Eliminating geographic concentrations of network-based activities, like eliminating cities, is neither possible nor desirable. Particular points in a community network are likely to become more desirable points for network interconnection and for application and content hosting. The challenge is to get a geographic structure that serves the common good, not the interests of a particular company.

Some related work:

• Ideas for geographically comprehensive lattice of competing, independently owned network interconnection points
• Thinking about structural reform for communications networks

Notes:

[1] Luís M. A. Bettencourt, José Lobo, Dirk Helbing, Christian Kühnert, and Geoffrey B. West (2007), "Growth, innovation, scaling, and the pace of life in cities," Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, v. 104 n. 17 (April 24) pp. 7301-7306.

[2] Malcolm J. Matson (2004), "The Open Public Local Access Network: The Concept and Emerging Realization," White Paper.

[3] Id. p. 18.

Offer Comments

The growth of the Internet has emphasized functional rather than structural aspects of networking. The end-to-end principle, the concept of "the Internet," and widespread concern about "bandwidth of connections to the Internet" push into the background ownership interfaces between networks and the geographic structure of interconnection. One result is that opportunities to innovate at the edges conflict with network "pipe" innovation, i.e. the paradox of the best network.

Major industry trends have major implications for network geography. Municipal networks, such as wi-fi networks or open-access municipal fibre optic networks, are a rapidly developing form of network infrastructure. From a regional or national perspective, municipal networks make cities important elements of network structure. If you just understand these networks to be providing Internet connectivity, you miss that they connect residents of a city to other residents of that city in a distinctive network organization.

Network geography significantly affects the cost of providing network services. If communication bandwidth cost is distance-senstitive, then local caching reduces the cost of distributing content. That effect is particulary important for high-bandwidth content such as video. Even if you believe that bandwidth costs will rapidly go to zero irrespective of physical distance, transaction costs associated with providing services are likely to remain distance-sensitive. At any given degree of infrastructure ownership consolidation, the number of ownership interfaces are likely to increase with distance. Ownership interfaces are a source of transaction costs. In addition, customer behavior and customer service have local components. Local knowledge allows a service provider to respond better to (local) customers' needs.

The economic geography of internetworking is starting to attract more attention. In an interesting presentation at the recent Firstmile conference, Mike Hrybyk discussed BCnet transit exchanges in British Columbia (if you’re wondering, that’s in Canada). These transit exchanges provide a low-transaction-cost environment for the exchange of network services, including peering of local users and user purchasing of network services from a variety of carrier suppliers. Research and educational institutions seeking to foster local network development and to experiment with innovative networks have led the development of these transit exchanges.

The Internet is wonderful. Future forms of internetworking can be even better. Recognizing cities as important structures for internetworking can help to make the Internet better.

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