in 1876 Riverton had a problem there was
a small group of settlers here and the
community wasn’t growing and the problem
was that while there was a river in
Riverton there was no way to get the
water from the river up to the bench
lands so a small group of organizers
figured out how to build a canal and
they mapped it out figured out how the
water would flow and once the canal was
built the settlement started to grow and
so did the local economy we can’t
separate the story of infrastructure
from the story of economic development
if you go to the Industrial Revolution
it was electricity that really helped
make that possible if you go to post-war
America it was the interstate highway
system and so today we’ve got new
challenges Kevin Kelley wrote a book in
1998
it’s an important book that almost
nobody’s read it’s called new rules for
a new economy and in the introduction to
that book he said communication is not
just a sector of the economy
communication is the economy the network
increasingly is the metaphor around
which our economy is organized and yet
the problem is that the network is
organized around the Internet service
you and I pay for that Network every
week every month so what we’re
interested in is how do we change this
paradigm where the network is not
designed around the internet service
provider but it’s organized around the
people who pay for the network every
month if we think about the Internet is
a digital highway then the Internet
service provider is a toll booth on that
Highway but it’s not just a toll to pay
to play there are many kinds of tools
that we play pay and we we pay them
continuously and I want to focus on two
and I want to go back to Kevin Kelly’s
book to talk about these two the first
one is that the network economy rewards
open systems because closed systems
close off opportunities the Internet is
a global scale open system but the
Internet service provider is a closed
system the second point from Kevin
Kelley is that in the network economy
the major transgression is to stifle
innovation and we do that when we stifle
competition
the Internet has shattered the barriers
to innovation but the Internet service
provider blocks all outside innovation
so how do we change an industry that’s
as big as the Internet service provider
I mean you think about the big brands
that run this industry and the massive
lobbying machines they have how do we
well the first thing to understand is
the distinction between infrastructure
and services because those are combined
we’re used to thinking of them as the
same thing but the infrastructure can be
wired or Wireless keep it simple
think of the wire that comes to your
house it’s the way you access the
Internet services run over that wire so
the first thing we have to do to fix
this problem is to separate the
infrastructure and the services and
that’s a business problem and it’s a
technology problem so how do we do that
how do we create that separation when we
have infrastructure that’s essential we
form that into a utility and by
essential that means that in this
economy
everyone needs access to that
infrastructure and if you believe that
our new economy is communication then
everyone does need access so we
organized the infrastructure into a
utility and we push services to the
cloud the current form of this system
combines both the infrastructure and the
services and so ask yourself the
question who should these networks serve
right now they’re serving the interests
of the Internet service provider because
of rule number one a rule number one is
that whoever controls the infrastructure
has control so to solve this problem we
need to separate the infrastructure and
the services and remembering rule number
one we need to give control over the
infrastructure to the people who fund to
let me show you how that what this looks
like when services are in the cloud
you’d come in you’d find a plan you
click subscribe
and network is automatically provisioned
no human intervention and your life if
you want to unsubscribe you’d click
unsubscribe the network’s torn down and
you can go choose a new ISP the only
reason we can’t do that in most of the
networks in this country is because they
control the infrastructure and the
services that technology is disruptive
to move the Internet service provider to
the cloud but what is probably more
disruptive is the innovation that can
take place on an open network that’s one
innovation but if we open up the network
and let anybody innovate in this space
which is the access space really
significant things would happen so this
is called network virtualization and
whenever you hear the word
virtualization just think software
anything that gets perks lies so if your
kids play soccer in front of a screen in
the basement they’re not actually
kicking a ball they’re having a software
experience and we call that
virtualization so in this case network
virtualization is when we create
software networks and software is
amazing because it’s flexible and it can
be on-demand and it can be real-time and
we can build things up and tear them
down quickly so the the really important
space for this kind of innovation is for
everything that should not be going
across the internet so the Internet is a
marketplace for ideas and information
and services and an actual marketplace
where we can go buy stuff but we don’t
really have a marketplace for everything
that should not be on the internet and
with network virtualization and an open
network we can create that marketplace
that means we can use the same
infrastructure and we can virtualize it
and we can create networks for public
safety
or the grid and there’s a lot of concern
about international hacking of our of
our utility systems telemedicine so
anything take education if a child’s
sick why do we send that child to school
why don’t we just give them access
through a private network to attend
class virtually let me show you how this
would work first this this quote from
the National Science Foundation this is
two years ago in a workshop where at the
dawn of a new era software-defined
infrastructure a starting point of a
very deep revolution that will reshape
our global computing infrastructure
today’s internet will run in just one
slice across the infrastructure with
many other novel services populating
other slices okay so at the federal
level they see what’s possible the large
ISPs can implement this but if they do
they’re going to implement it for their
benefit they’re going to monetize that
with every every service that gets
provided if the infrastructures
organized as utility then this will flow
freely and we’ll be able to use these
networks on demand without economic
barriers to it so this is what this
would look like you go in you click on a
private network
you hit subscribed it gives you the
choice do you want to host a network or
join a network it gives you a code you
share the code with whoever wants to
join the network and you’ve got a
private network for that marketplace for
everything that should not be going
across the public Internet if you want
to be a smart City
this is the kind of innovation we need
fibre optics would be the base
infrastructure for smart city and we
should put it in a utility for the
benefit of the city and the citizens so
how can a city afford this kind of
network well the great news is the money
is already there
we’re spending it every month in a city
about the size of Riverton there’s
probably around 15,000 premises if the
average internet price is $70 that means
that annually this town is spending over
twelve million dollars over a 20-year
period that’s 250 million you can build
a really nice network for that much
money so the money’s here it’s not a
matter of finding new money or taking on
big debt it’s a matter of making the
money transparent how’s it flowing and
then allocating it to the utility to
infrastructure and to the services that
are in the cloud in the first city that
we deployed this kind of network we
dropped the average ISP price within 10
months from $75 to $45 and the speed
went from 30 megabits per second to over
100 megabits per second symmetrical up
and down so it’s a the price is going to
come down more and the speeds going to
go up more as this open market takes
effect so what’s important in this new
economy is that we get a network that’s
open edge-to-edge where innovation can
flow freely and to do that we need to go
back to our canal builders in early
Riverton this isn’t something that a
technology company is going to come in
and provide it really does the mayor’s
talk this morning because that level of
community engagement where people will
take the time to understand and talk to
their neighbors and explain what we’re
paying the tolls were paying month in
and month out for our current system so
the way we can’t we change this hundred
billion dollar industry is one city at a
time by showing a difference and what
the value that we’re getting
these networks [Music]