Daily life moves and merges fairly seamlessly across these four domains and in recent decades, this inter-connectivity has been enhanced and advanced by the emergence of the three seminal  low cost digital technologies of the second half of the 20^th century:

a)      the silicon chip
b)      fibre optic cables and lasers
c)      cognitive radio

Connecting ‘people’ and ‘devices’ both within these domains and between and across them, is proving ever more important to individual citizens and society at large.   Such ‘digital connectivity’ is delivering ever greater socio-economic benefit to citizens, institutions and corporations – enhancing life, work and play today and opening up new opportunities tomorrow for enhancing a civil society.

Each of these three basic technologies and the products derived from them are arguably subject to the miracle of Moore’s Law – doubling in power or capacity every couple of years with a commensurate drop in cost.   For example, in 1976, a gigabit of hard disk would have cost £350,000, by 2011 this had fallen to 3.5p; or 1 Mb of RAM memory costs less than a penny today, but in 1976 that would have set you back £20,000.  Everything, including the cables and radio components that enable devices to be connected, have been similarly impacted by increasing power and falling costs.

This means that to benefit from high capacity connectivity in ‘my private domain’ or home and work domain, all that is required is access to these ever cheaper components which, when linked together, create a ‘network’.   So syncing an iPhone with a laptop in ‘my private domain’ or sending a page of text from a PC to a printer over the home or work network simply requires direct access to the hardware components – there is no need for a ‘middle man’ or ‘service provider operator’ to effect connectivity.  Once these physical components are in place and financed, the digital stream of data is sent, processed or stored as nothing more than 1’s and 0’s.   A billion dollar loan note, as far as the network and its connectivity components are concerned, is indistinguishable from Mozart’s 40^th Symphony, a picture of the Taj Mahal or an email saying that you will be late home tonight.

This principle of ‘network neutrality’ ought to underpin the ‘networks’ which provides the digital connectivity across and between  the four domains identified above.  But one of these domains is starved of Network Neutrality – the LOCAL public access network that should connect our communities, towns and cities.  Throughout the world, this local access network remains entirely under the ‘closed’ and captive control of the cartel of telecoms and cable TV service providers.   Communication beyond the home or office to anywhere, including access to the Public Internet, is entirely under their control and subject to payment of a hefty ‘toll’ charge, entirely unrelated to the underlying cost of the physical infrastructure deployed.  The world pays over $2 trillion dollars a year for the privilege of dealing with this local network capture.

The global cartel of telecoms and cable TV service providers persist (with the help of flawed public policy) with the same vertically integrated business model which underpinned their success in an earlier but now extinct analogue era:

• investing in network infrastructure  
• operating and maintaining that network
• monetizing the network by retailing service, applications and ’content’ to end users

So, while connectivity in our private, home and work networks as well across the public internet, becomes ever faster, easier and cheaper – thanks to open access to the digital technologies identified above – there remains the missing link of local connectivity around our communities and cities.  Connectivity here remains under the control of what is, in effect, a class of state supported ‘private toll booths’.  These ‘service providers’ seek, within limits imposed by a sector specific ‘regulator’, to monetise the ever increasingly abundant capacity of these digital technologies.  It is the OPLAN Foundation’s contention that the greatest wealth creation opportunity and general economic benefit is derived from financing, structuring and operating these three functions independently (as is already the case of the ‘net-neutral’ public internet and our home and office networks).

It is widely recognised that the 1.5 billion copper telephone wires in the world connecting everyone’s phone and computer to the local telephone exchange and the internet will be replaced by optical fibre.  There are a number of factors driving this:

• the voracious appetite in a connected digital world for ‘more bandwidth’
• £1 invested in optical fibre has the capacity of £28,000 of copper
• a fibre local network is 80% less costly to operate than a copper network

As already inferred, the OPLAN Foundation and many others, believe that the greatest wealth creation opportunity and general economic benefit (including to the shareholders of the incumbent telcos) is derived from this multi-trillion investment being undertaken in accordance with a new ‘open access’ business model.

In simple graphic terms, the two figures below show the radically different topography of existing local access networks compared with the OPLAN model.

Over the years, OpenPlanet has accumulated substantial understanding of the ‘must have’ and ‘must avoid’ elements of the complex mix that goes to deliver an OPLAN to a particular city or community.  While there is no absolute definition of an OPLAN nor ‘blue-print’ for delivering one, OpenPlanet has developed a list of what it regards as the key defining characteristics of an OPLAN.

The key defining characteristics of an OPLAN

• is a network of truly ‘broadband’ capacity – i.e. where the bandwidth capacity is dictated by nothing other than physical characteristics of the deployed technologies (fibre or wireless) : no artificial creation of scarcity by tariffing mechanisms
• is dedicated to serving a local geographic community – usually defined by administrative boundaries
• provides abundant low cost access to connectivity on an ‘end-to-end’ and symmetrical basis throughout that community
• is a ‘public utility’ in that it is available for use (on equal terms) by any party located within the community it serves: public and private, business and residential – the 4^th Utility^©
• affords global connectivity (inc. to the public internet) through offering ‘open access’ to competing third-party carriers and service providers
• does not differentiate between ‘content creators’ and ‘content consumers’ and their ‘bits’ i.e. ‘service providers’ are not treated as a specific category of user … thereby the artificial  ‘wholesale’ and ‘retail’ divide is eliminated
• provides infrastructure which is open to all and is owned and controlled independently of any service or content using it
• is structured, financially and legally, and configured with management and governance measures which serve  the ’common local public good’ and ensures the primary short and long term ‘value and benefit’ rests locally and with users of the network
• periodic ‘access’ charges are broadly based on servicing capital, and maintenance  and upgrade cost-recovery
• is primarily funded by the private sector and market driven – the OPLAN model is not a backdoor to re-nationalisation or state ownership.   The strategic commitment of the local authority and the covenant of the public sector and its various agencies as long term users of the OPLAN are essential to its success and constitute the primary public sector inputs
• subsumes the incumbents’ obsolete copper local network – thereby delivering optimum residual value to its shareholders and affording the ‘incumbent’ lowest cost, future-proof connectivity to exploit its strong franchise with its existing customers by developing and marketing new bandwidth-hungry services and content – albeit in competition with others

The 2011 Second International Conference on the Network of the Future (NoF 2011) will provide an international technical forum for experts from industry and academia from all the world to exchange ideas and present results of ongoing research in the Internet of the future, Post-IP architecture and Beyond IP. After the first successful edition of Network of the Future 2010 in Brisbane (Australia), the second edition of the conference will be held in Paris (France) November 28-30, 2011.

Future Internet Event  (24th – 26th October) will offer three main events: Future Internet  Conference, Future Internet Assembly, Future Internet Forum. During these conferences the vision of the future Europe will be linked with  the tasks to be put before IT infrastructure to implement such strategies as: Innovation Europe or Digital Europe.

The forum of professionals organized twice a year under the aegis of the European Union – the Future Internet Assembly (FIA) is a great opportunity to present the research and development results on Future Internet. Traditionally, the organizer of the meeting is the country assuming Presidency in the EU Council.

LESSON ONE

“Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day… Teach him how to fish and you ruin a great business opportunity”

This is more or less the unanimous response of the telecoms and cable TV sectors to the growing ‘bottoms-up’ and community-inspired deployment of digital connectivity.

Moreover, it is ill informed and will ultimate short-change the shareholders of these telecoms companies, claims Matson.

Each country (through early 20^th century nationalization) created its monopoly PTT and local exchange carrier but come the fashion for privatization in the 1980s, little or no thought was given to winding back the clock so as to re-establish their local autonomy and ability to focus on local connectivity.

Privatizing them in their nationwide status created in each country a massive vested interest with over-whelming lobbying powers.  Little wonder therefore, that the emerging movement for local,  user-driven local community connectivity is facing such orchestrated opposition and regulator-induced restrictions seeded by the special pleadings of ‘stake-holders’.

LESSON TWO

“In the Digital World, once you have paid for the hardware pieces – the bits are FREE”

In the analogue world of telephony, the routing of traffic required the ‘services’ of the network owner.  This primarily consisted of the employment of the ‘operator’ sitting in the local exchange/central offices and connecting the circuits.  The digital technologies underpinning packet switching has fundamentally changed this topography in that routing control has moved to the periphery of the network and into the hands of users themselves.  This means that the very concept of a ‘service provider’ as one that is an intrinsic part of the network itself, is now being challenged.   The business model that underpins the network in our home or office, namely that once the cabling, hubs, routers and PCs have been financed, the use of them is ‘free’, is in fact scalable to a city or community.  Public policy makers fail to understand that this principle (otherwise called ‘network neutrality’) which already underpins the public internet, should also prevail at the local city and community level.

LESSON THREE

“Attempts to ‘tame’ disruptive technology kills progress”

The telecoms sector served the world for a century by allocating the scarce, copper-based resource of trunk and international network capacity, in order to create the end-to-end circuits which enabled the world to ‘converse’ across nations and international boundaries.  But the digital technologies (silicon chip; optical fibre and cognitive radio) have combined to create a tsunami of cheap abundance in terms of capacity.  Unfortunately, our politicians have for many years (post privatisation) given the telecoms sector a privileged and protected right to deploy these disruptive technologies in public telecommunications networks.  Little wonder that they have sought to tame these technologies resorting to the levers of shaping regulatory policy.  Nowhere is this more evident than in the mobile sector where ‘auctioning spectrum’ to an elite group of service providers has been preferred over offering end users access to more license exempt spectrum.   The explosion of innovation that has resulted from the slither of 2.4 Ghz spectrum (known as WiFi) should provide a salutary lesson to our public policy makers claims Malcolm Matson.

LESSON FOUR

“Local P2P connectivity  – the big game changer”

It is fashionable to talk of the next ‘killer app’ but Malcolm Matson claims that the, as yet, unseen ‘big game changer’ will result from the emergence of OPLANs (Open Public Local Access Network).  Once a city or community is served by a ubiquitous, high bandwidth and non-mediated ‘4^th Utility’ network then, and only then, will that city begin to discover and experiment with new life-enriching and cost reducing ways of going about its daily life.  One of the most dramatic transformations will be seen in the public sector and especially in the delivery of health and education services claims Malcolm Matson.   “Only when a local doctor or hospital can have instant high bandwidth, real-time connectivity (way beyond anything the public internet will ever be capable of supporting) with any individual in their community, will the possibility of citizen-centric health care rather than hospital-centric illness treatment become a realitic possibility.”

The CONFINE Project will provide an extensive test bed for interested parties to explore the technical and social issues related to locally and regionally driven community networks based on internet protocol. Community networks, like that already operated by various participants in the CONFINE project deploy the latest digital technology, whether wireless and/or optical fibre, to support the communities they serve. These networks provide local connectivity within and across their community that can support a whole range of users and services – not just access to the global public internet or voice telephony.

Community networks are structured and managed to ensure all the benefit and value goes to the users of the network, so it is likely that they will substantially contribute to the socio-economic prosperity of the citizens they serve.  For example, their potential for the delivery of health and education services, and local e-commerce, can have a transformational impact on a city or community. The CONFINE Project will accelerate this by providing any interested party with a test-bed for exploring and validating this assumption. The partners have already begun the task of planning the first phase of the project test bed.

The CONFINE project comprises eight partners from Belgium, Spain, Germany, Greece and the UK and is being co-ordinated by the Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya in Spain. It will run for four years with a total budget of just under five million euros. The key goal of the CONFINE Project will be to develop and extend a test-bed environment which will include the partners’ existing community networks that already comprise more than 20,000 nodes and links. Once established, then the CONFINE project will make an open call to researchers (from academia,  industry and the third sector), on how they might be able to benefit the citizens of the EU by using the test bed to undertake further technical, social and economic research to enhance the sustainability and utility of community networks.

Malcolm Matson, Founder and Director of The OPLAN Foundation said,

“We are very pleased to be able to contribute to the CONFINE project by collaborating with the very experienced group of participants from around the EU. We are confident that by sharing our knowledge and experience we will be able to develop a test-bed environment that will be welcomed and used by a wide range of researchers to the benefit of our citizens.”

The eight partners in CONFINE are:

• Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya (UPC): Spain
  UPC is a university with a consolidated worldwide reputation and an international vision that generates technological innovation and attracts talent.   The objectives of the UPC are based on internationalization.
• Fundació Privada per a la Xarxa Oberta, Lliure i Neutral guifi.net: Spain
  Located in Catalonia, Spain, guifi.net is the largest community network of its kind in the world using unlicensed wireless links and open optical links.   It is open and neutral with over 21,400 nodes and self-organised and operated by the users in the community.
• FunkFeuer: Austria
  FunkFeuer is a free, experimental network in Vienna, Graz, in parts of Weinviertel (NÖ) and Bad Ischl. It is build and maintained by computer enthusiasts. This project is non commercial.
• Athens Wireless Metropolitan Network (AWMN): Greece
  Started in 2002 in Athens Greece, Athens Wireless Metropolitan Network (AWMN) is a grass roots wireless community, taking advantage of new, state of the art wireless technologies, to connect people and services.  It now covers an area approximately 100km x 100 km and operates on a not-for-profit basis.
• Comunicació per a la Cooperació- Pangea: Spain
  Pangea is an NGO which aims to facilitate communications to individuals and non-profit groups working for change, social justice, peace, education, environment and co-operation, trying to break north-south and gender differences.
• Fraunhofer-Gesellschaft zur Förderung der angewandten Forschung EV: Germany
  Europe’s largest application-oriented research organization. Our research efforts are geared entirely to people’s needs: health, security, communication, energy and the environment. As a result, the work undertaken by our researchers and developers has a significant impact on people’s lives.
• Interdisciplinary Institute for Broadband Technology: Belgium
  Based in Belgium, IBBT aims to create a lasting and positive impact on society through ICT innovation and research undertaken in collaboration with technology suppliers and users.

Mozilla Festival is a yearly celebration that brings together hundreds of passionate people to explore the frontiers of the open web. We mash developers, designers, and big thinkers together to make things that can change the world.

This year’s theme is Media, Freedom and the Web—how can the web can make us more creative, collaborative and connected in an age of broadcasters big and small?

This is in marked contrast to most national political and public policy agendas on this topic, which argue from a ‘top down perspective’ and are focussed on ensuring that, almost ab initio, all cities and communities within their jurisdiction enjoy similar access to information infrastructure and services. Now that may sound commendable and politically correct in this age of equality, but it is absurd and, in my view, utterly counter productive. I have always marvelled at how Alexander Graham Bell managed to sell the first telephone before he had sold a second with which it could communicate. But imagine a situation in which he was prevented or discouraged from creating a massive ‘analogue-divide’ by having to ensure that everyone or no-one had his new technology.

So I applaud the visionary local politicians that see that today, as in earlier times, the development and implementation of ‘new infrastructure’ ahead of other adjacent towns, could yield real socio-economic prosperity. Make a visit to the Lyndon B Johnson (former US President) Library and Museum exhibit in Austin Texas and see the impressive ‘Power to the People’ exhibit. This tells the dramatic story of how LBJ was largely responsible for the introduction of electricity to the Texas Hill Country with dramatic impact on the region’s development, progress and economic welfare – and a dramatic impact on LBJ’s career as it impacted the ballot box and propelled him to the White House. I predict that the same will happen with some of those young local politicians whose political careers will be built on transforming their local communities through the development of OPLAN and all that this will enable.

So to our national political leaders and to their policy advisors, and to hugely influential NGOs such the ITU and the World Bank, I say forget this obsession with avoiding or eliminating a digital divide – let’s do all we can to encourage those local leaders who are beginning to want to create a digital divide … placing their citizens, their businesses, their local institutions and public bodies at a distinct competitive advantage over those of the city down the road or across the sea. The sooner there is a realisation that, just like earlier industrial revolutions driven by innovative technology, are a ‘bottom-up’ world-changer, then the sooner we will see other cities and communities emulating their success and naturally eliminating any digital divide.

This two-day event of fibre-to-the-home will allow participants to deepen their knowledge of a wide range of fibre-related topics such as market developments, insightful case studies, economics and financing, regulation and policy, ervices and content driving bandwidth demand and technology updates. Playing host to a number of keynote speakers and industry experts, this conference will be accompanied by an extensive exhibition. NOTE – this conference is ‘technology specific’ (fiber) and ‘business model neutral’ … so it will be attended and populated by as many opposed to Open Access as those supporting it.