Europe: breaking the internet, again

corkie

By Lawrence Lessig on
www.lessig.org/blog/
Europe: I am an admirer in a million different ways. But please, don't blow the Internet again. Take every bit of advice that your telecom monopolies give you, and just ignore it. Those monopolies stifled growth in ICT in Europe once. Don't let them do it again.

He was at World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS) in Geneva and has made a note of his experience on trying to gain access using wireless networks

But if you tried to connect your computer to the wireless network provided by Swiss telecom, then you experienced the worst of wireless connectivity. First, to connect, you needed to have an access card. Each time I connected, it took me at least 10 minutes to get through the sign-on process. More than 50% of the time, the system didn't work at all -- wildly under deployed, despite the high cost of access cards (after an initial "free 2 hours" which was timed from the first moment you signed on, regardless of how much time you actually used). Then, if you were lucky enough to connect, the network was inevitably pudgy. The experience of everyone was the same: if this is wireless, then what's all the fuss?

What would be best comment to post to his weblog????

sceptre

I'm rather a fan of Larry Lessig's as a general rule - the world doesn't have enough law types who also have a concept of how technology works and should work (though obviously due to my own background I'm a little biased).

Note that I didn't say that we need more lawyers, just more useful or multifunctional lawyers

Where he slightly misses the boat on the SMS messaging authentication problem is that the problem he experienced can be solved outside the code or content layers completely. Don't have a phone that can receive SMS? Then you should be able to get your access code in the old fashioned way from a desk with a person sitting at it. They may charge you a little more for doing this but then you're the guy without an SMS-capable phone. It's a little more inconvenient but you /are/ the guy without an SMS-capable phone. It's procedurally the same as being stuck in New York with a thousand dollars worth of pesos in your pocket - to get a ticket for the bus or make a phone call you're going to have to go through a few more hoops than the guy who came prepared.

With regard to the more technical difficulties of getting a connection to the wi-fi network working and keeping it working, these difficulties are nothing to do with Europe in particular or monopolist telecom companies (let's remember the effective monopoly that AT&T had in the US for so long - Lessig has been pretty cynical about that in print) and more to do with a lack of standards and poor implementation of new standards that is sadly rather common in new technologies.

A world-wide standard would be ideal and we may get there yet. Just like GSM though, if Europe has a better standard that the US chooses not to implement I fail to see why Europe should follow a poorer standard just for convenience. A pan-European standard is something of a must - the Japanese can choose to go their own way if they like.

I'll take this as a worthy mantra though:

Take every bit of advice that your telecom monopolies give you, and just ignore it.

Good enough to put on a tee-shirt. I just might do that.

yellum

I'm sure they also use some of the same stupid system he slams in America too. Its not just Europe thats breaking the Internet, look at the stranglehold cable companies in the states have on certain markets.

dahamsta

Larry's one of the good guys, in fact if anything Eldred probably proved that he's a little too good for his own, uh, good. And let's be honest, although the way he says it is a little xenophobic, the underlying premise is right: In many respects, Europe is miles behind the United States on telecomms and Internet issues. However the three blind mice that regularly comment on his blog avoided going around the block like other posters and hit the nail on the head in the very first paragraph of their response:

dear professor lessig the mice are sorry that you had such a poor experience in europe. it reminds the mice of most of our visits to america. why americans cannot adopt the 220V standard used by most of the world remains a frustration.

Perhaps he really is ill and didn't intend to turn it into a Europe V US debate. But is he so ill he didn't notice the title of his own post? Cop yourself on Larry.

adam

Capt'n Midnight

Don't see what the fuss is about. It's not a technical issue. Amost all the problems mentioned stem from the means of extracting money in inefficient ways.

Shoot the marketing gimps and use their salaries to subsidise WiFi Airports.
Problem solved AND it would probably be a very cost effective way of marketing.
Even in Ireland ADSL costs less than 3K to setp and run for a year - how much do billboards cost to rent ? - and more important you target executives and techies who are more likely to use telecoms services than your average punter.

Ripwave

The ironic thing is that he says that his T-Mobile wireless account which is says is "is expensive but has always been great". And then he describes his AT&T experience as "European".


He also fails to tell us the name of the, presumably American, company that got the "freedom" network working by the end of the conference
:cool: