The Jeff Pulver Blog: Guest Blogger: Geoffrey S. Mendelson

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January 24, 2006

Guest Blogger: Geoffrey S. Mendelson - "Is there really an internet?"

I'd like to thank Jeff for allowing me to "guest blog" and to suggest that I post this.

In the real world, there is no such thing as "The Internet". It exists only in the minds of the people that use it, not the people that make it happen.

It's really a set of interconnecting separate networks, each independent but also dependent upon each other. For example, I'm sure this message has gone though five or as many as 10 networks to get from my home in Jerusalem to the mail server I use in the U.S. to pulver.com's servers.

It's the "last mile" people that seem to think they own "The Internet" for a specific area. This is a holdover from the days when "The Bell System" owned the last mile of communication for almost everyone in the U.S.

Maybe it's time to end that monopoly. I think several small advertiser supported WiFi and soon WiMax networks are viable in many places. If you can get local advertisers to pay for the infrastructure, the cost of running such an ISP is relatively low and the incremental cost for higher volume applications stays low.

With the extended range of WiMax, you can have several small ISPs serving the same area. None of them will "make a killing", but combined with service from the telcos, cable companies and other ISPs there will be freedom of choice, which keeps service levels high and prices low.

This seems to me to be a good place to get in at the bottom. I'm sure there are plenty of VC people who would invest in such a speculative venture and the technical people to make it happen.

I can be reached via email at: gsm@mendelson.com.

Geoff.

Tags: Internet, Geoffrey Mendelson

(c) 2006 Jeff Pulver. All Rights Reserved.
(This blog posting is copyright protected by Jeff Pulver. Portions of this blog posting may be quoted or abstracted if attributed.)

Posted by jeff on January 24, 2006 10:20 AM | Permalink

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Having started in a tech. support position at the ISP I currently work for, I can say that one of the most frequent acute misconceptions I've encountered, mostly from our rural, elderly customer base in remote POPs here in Georgia, is that the entire contents of the Internet are housed on our premises. :-)

It wasn't a very common claim statistically, but it was very impressive when it was made.

"Did you turn off the Internet again?"

"Sorry, sir! My colleague tripped over the cable that plugged it in headed out for a smoke! -- OH, excuse me, I've got the White House and Defence Dept. on line 2 ... they want to know why we unplugged it too ... gotta go!"

Anyway, on a more serious note, I do think the transformative potential of wireless service is somewhat overhyped. Don't get me wrong, it's a great thing, but there's only so much you can do with the high-frequency unlicenced spectrum, and to address QoS and other inherent issues. I think wireline technologies will always have a significant role to play in worldwide interconnection.

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Posted by: Joe at January 24, 2006 02:03 PM

January 24, 2006

Guest Blogger: Geoffrey S. Mendelson - "Is there really an internet?"

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