Jeremy wrote:

] * Acknowledge that non-Internet communications equipment ...
] is economically obsolete ...

I'm interested in hearing what other people on the site think about this.

I agree with many of the things being said here, but I've stopped short of recommending this in the past. There seems to be an irrational undercurrent in this that wants to say "my stuff is better then your stuff" in an absolutist and unthinking way. There are certainly serious problems and limitations with the Internet Protocol suite, and in the last few years the quality of the "standards" the IETF and similar bodies have been producing has dropped dramatically.

IP didn't win because its the most capable solution. It won because it existed in an environment where the telecom monopolies were actively trying to stall the development of digital networks, and IP was the hardest solution to control.

Hard to control doesn't always been optimal. Gnutella is not more efficient then napster.

Having said that, I think its clear that IP has "won" and that with the deployment of IP being so ubiquitous that any future development must, at least, interoperate with it in order to be useful. I don't think we're going to replace it with something else anytime soon.

I raise this counter point only to provide the perspective needed to see what I think the FCC ought to be doing, which is that they ought to be agnostic. The FCC should no more prefer IP based solutions then other solutions. What it should do is create an environment where its possible for different solutions to be made available... an environment where it is possible to innovate. I don't want the government choosing a technological direction, and a future where non-IP based solutions are simply not possible is as much a threat to innovation as a future where the only technologies that are allowed are the ones that benefit the telecom companies.

RE: The Paradox of the Best Network