[Chapter-delegates] Article in The New York Times

Wed Mar 19 12:32:08 PDT 2008

Dear Oliver,

Thank you for such an elaborate response to some of the points that I
have raised. Often anwers to questions raise more questions and that
is exactly how a discussion progresses. I have some observations on
what you have said, INSERTED at relevant places in your email below:

On 3/19/08, Olivier MJ Crepin-Leblond <ocl at gih.com> wrote:
> Dear Sivasubramanian,
>
>  I have read your email with interest and wanted to try and add my comments
>  to a few of your suggestions, if you would allow me. For the sake of keeping
>  my reply as short as possible, I'll look at your points in turn.
>
>
>  > But what I have talked about in my mail is about unnecessary router
>  > hops (that happens when the route of data transfer from point A to
>  > point B is circutious. If it makes sense, compare the flight path from
>  > Delhi to San Francisco (assuming a direct, truly non-stop, not even a
>  > fueling stop flight. It is near-linear. But what happens when it comes
>  > to data transfer? Is the distance minimal ?
>
>
> Routing strategies are numerous, notably due to peering from network to
>  network, costs, congestion, etc.
>  In fact, the forward journey of a packet might not be the same as the return
>  journey, ie. asymmetric.
>  I fail to understand your point about traffic going around the globe. Are
>  you arguing that having traffic from A to B in Delhi pass through a router
>  in San Francisco is a waste of resources? If it makes financial sense to the
>  ISPs, it isn't. It is really their choice to do so.

I do agree that it might make financial sense for the ISPs to route
traffic roundabout due to infrastructure convenience. It may not be an
additional cost to the ISPs, but it is to the people who share the
miniscule cost of inefficient routing, but these miniscules add upto
untold and unseen billions and in addition it is definitely an added
burden on the environment.

>  In understand your point that resource-wise, less routers & telco equipment
>  along the way means less carbon footprint. But is it really? You would then
>  need to look at carbon footprint on a wider scale, ie. source of energy,
>  etc. >  I refer you to Bill St. Arnaud's excellent blog on those issues:
>  http://green-broadband.blogspot.com/

That is a relevant and interesting resource. I took a quick look at
it, later to go through it in detail, and what initially struck me is
this statement: " CO2 emissions of the ICT industry alone exceeds the
carbon output of the entire aviation industry ".

I dont think we would be having much of an ICT industry if there were
no internet. So the existing and growing internet infrastructure has
direct and indirect impact on the environment, one area being carbon
emissions.  There are other areas of environmental contamination
directly and indirectly related to the internet. The construction and
deployment of fiber leave a carbon footprint, energy is spent on
producing computers that connect to the internet, computers become
obsolete with every significant increase in bandwidth (indirectly -
increase in available bandwidth result in newer web and local
applications, for instance streaming video, which requires a newer
computer with a graphic chip, which makes a pentium 1 or 2 obsolte) .
The obsolete computers need to be dumped somewhere leading to garbage
related issues.  These are at best examples, and there are identified
and unidentiied environmental issues.

>
>  Technically speaking, the Earth can sustain way more Internet traffic. Plans
>  are being implemented by several large corporations to relocate servers to
>  sites with access to cheaper (and greener) energy. I refer you to Google's
>  recent Datacentre in Oregon.

Yes, data centers are becoming greener, laptops and desktops are
becoming greener, one sign is a 5.5 W chip from intel that is 1200
MHz... But the direct electrical energy conserved is such one
component of several that the internet directly and indirectly takes
from the internet.

While there is a trend towards low energy computers, there is a
growing trend towards moving the traditionally local traffic to the
internet. For example web applications and internet operating systems,
online storage. The adoption of these technolgies as on date is
minimal, but growing at an increased pace. We need to examine the
environmental impact of this as well.

>  I'll go as far as saying that the amount of traffic we have seen so far on
>  the Internet is nothing compared to what's going to be implemented tomorrow.
>  And we have one thing going for us in the right direction, that is, the
>  drain on the earth's resources to increase network capacity is way lower
>  than to increase road capacity. Internet congestion is likely to slow down
>  traffic electronically, whereas road congestion dramatically increases
>  pollution.

That is one argument. But this argument could be flawed (nothing
personal) For eg, consider a similar argument about computers and
digital storage leading to a paperless office. In theory it sounded
good, but there is more paper today than there was before computers.
Paper did not disapper. Travel will not disappear. Infact more people
will travel more often than people did before the internet. The
internet is actually generating greater demand to commute and to
travel, in other words, it promotes physical movement.
For e.g. consider the impact of online travel and hotel portels
promoting travel as also making it easier to plan a trip or a weekend.

>  IMHO, both sides of the argument are using excessive fear tactics to scare
>  law-makers into setting down laws that will regulate traffic in the future.
>  The Internet has so far been a cash cow for some information providers, with
>  telecom carriers believing it is at their expense. What debate you are
>  seeing today is an attempt to modify the equilibrium of the Internet's
>  billing model - by force.
>

I haven't paid attention to the aspects related to a few industries /
corporations taking a greater share of the internet profits. This is
definitely an area that needs to be looked into. The spirit of the
internet is that of a public infrastructure, not taxed, not charged,
the governments and the central infrastructure bodies such as W3C and
ISOC maintain this spirit of a "tax"-free internet and these bodies
have adamently stayed out of internet revenues. But revenues pour in,
in trillions. Various industries have stepped in to collect the
revenues.

( It is necessary to insert a disclaimer here, there is so much that I
have raised in terms of environmental concerns, but I am not an
environmentalist. Also in the point raised above I might have come
across as some sort of a socialist, I am not that either. I am a
freedom loving common man and a business man, but the extent of
freedom characteristic of today's internet strikes me as dangerously
excessive - consider the freedom that a person has to anonymously have
a web presence, to spam, to infect, to rob and to cause havoc. It is a
degree of freedom that endangers the freedom of the rest of the
internet users, so certain degree of regulation - not necessarily
governmental, is necessary.)
>  [...]
>
>
>  >
>  > The concern about environmental impact might be a bit fetched, but it
>  > could be one of the aspects that a comprehensive study might take it
>  > as one of the terms of reference.
>
>
> Such a study might prove to be very expensive indeed (you are speaking about
>  the world here!), and might prove to be out of date by the time it is
>  published, such is the pace of change on the Internet. Back in 1996 we used
>  to say that an Internet Year lasted 3 months. I frankly do not know long an
>  Internet Year lasts now. Suffice to say that there is so much happening
>  simultaneously worldwide that it would require a lot of ressources to
>  analyse.
>
>
>  > There needs to some balance. There are ways by which balance could be
>  > brought about. There could be creative ways. What if all video and
>  > audio is moved to the TV screen by cable ? ( I am not sure if it would
>  > make any difference, but a seperation of gaming/movies/music from the
>  > "traditional" internet content is technically feasible considering
>  > today's trends of online Video portals tying up with Television/cable
>  > content providers. If online music and video and games move to the
>  > realm of interactive TV screens ???
>
>
> The trend is for the integration of all media services. It makes sense
>  economically speaking. Technically possible and already implemented.
>  Barriers are commercial & legal. The current debates (sadly turning to wars,
>  IMHO) about Network Neutrality are brought by the massive increase in
>  traffic expected when so much video content gets lugged around the Internet.
>  The Internet world of everybody being nice to each other is sadly over.
>  Today we are looking at big bucks for the future, hence the current frenzy.
>  Let us make no mistake that the result of those debates and the path taken
>  by the US will *define* what corporations will be the wealthiest & control
>  information in the next 10 years. I cannot emphasize how important those
>  discussions are.

This is another aspect that needs to be looked into. If a certains
structure is brought about the imbalance of a few corporations or a
certain industries amassing internet revenues can be balanced.

>
>  In a way, I agree with your suggestion for a comprehensive study of the
>  Internet, but can't see what benefits would ISOC gain out of it and how ISOC
>  would implement such a study. In an ideal world, yes, but we now live in a
>  commercial world that is about to be hit with a wave of regulatory
>  frameworks due to the fact that it was totally unable to ensure its own
>  fairness.

On your earlier points that this study would take several "internet
years" to complete, I wish to say that the study can also be at the
internet pace and could be swift.  Part of the exercise would be to
determine if the study would benefit ISOC, benefits would be
identified as we go deeper into the idea of carrying out this
research. It coluld also examine the level of regualory framework that
is absolutely necessary rather than allow the internet to be "hit with
a wave of regulatory framework". When you talk about the regulatory
framework, the connotation is that of governmental regulation. Not all
of it need be governmental regulation, but most of the necessary
regulation could be non-governmental. For instance the necessary
regulations pertaining to anonymity issues could be regulated by a
board of indiduals including privacy activists.

>
>  Warm regards,
>
>  Olivier
>
>
>  --
>  Olivier MJ Crepin-Leblond, Ph.D.
>  E-mail:<ocl at gih.com> | Tel:+33 (0)6 14 65 35 37 | US Fax:+1 (240)214 0440
>  http://www.gih.com/ocl.html & http://www.nsrc.org/codes/country-codes.html
>
>
>
>
>
>
>

-- 
Sivasubramanian Muthusamy
CEO
Isolated Networks
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