Thanks to Jeff Hoel for providing the transcript for Episode 122 of the Community Broadband [no-glossary]Bits[/no-glossary] podcast with Bob Frankston. Listen to this episode here. 00:05: Bob Frankston: The Internet is basically a discontinuity from the tradition of communications as a service. It's something we can do ourselves. And that's very empowering. And that's the future we need to look towards. 00:16: Lisa Gonzalez: Hello there. Welcome to the Community Broadband Bits Podcast, from the Institute for Local Self-Reliance. This is Lisa Gonzalez. Today we have another visit from Bob Frankston. Bob and Chris have talked together in a couple of other Community Broadband Bits Podcasts, and we always enjoy having him back again. Many of our discussions focus on communities that have done interesting things with connectivity. But when Bob visits, he always makes us look at the definition of connectivity. In this discussion, Bob and Chris get into the economics of bringing ubiquitous access to the U.S., among other things. Policy makers often draw parallels between the Internet and our extensive systems of roads, or our efforts to electrify the entire country. Bob and Chris look a little deeper into these comparisons. They take a hard look at the economics of fiber networks, and how current practices need to change to take full advantage of its possibilities. Bob has an extensive library of writings at frankson.com . So if this conversation piques your interest, be sure to check out his work. Here are Chris and Bob for an interesting conversation. 01:22: Chris Mitchell: Welcome to another edition of the Community Broadband Bits Podcast. I'm Chris Mitchell. And today I'm speaking with Bob Frankston. Welcome back to the show, Bob. 01:31: Bob Frankston: Well, thank you. Glad to be here again. 01:34: Chris: You and I spoke in -- I believe it was the single digits, one of the earliest episodes of the Community Broadband Bits. And there, I think we went a little bit more over your background. But you've been programming for over half a century. And you've been an entrepreneur. And, for our purposes, you've done a lot of writing about telecommunications networks, and people can find that at frankston.com . And I encourage them to go check it out.

I encourage readers to visit Doc Searls post "Broadband vs. Internet" for a discussion about things that matter regarding the future of Internet access for most Americans.

The Internet is no more capable than the infrastructures that carry it. Here in the U.S. most of the infrastructures that carry the Internet to our homes are owned by telephone and cable companies. Those companies are not only in a position to limit use of the Internet for purposes other than those they favor, but to reduce the Net itself to something less, called “broadband.” In fact, they’ve been working hard on both.

There is a difference between the Internet and "broadband." Broadband is a connection that is always on and tends to be somewhat faster than the dial-up speeds of 56kbps. Broadband could connect you to anything... could be the Internet or to an AOL like service where some company decides what you can see, who you can talk to, and the rules for doing anything. The Internet is something different. It is anarchic, in the textbook definitional sense of being leaderless. It is a commons. As Doc says,

The Internet’s protocols are NEA:

• Nobody owns them.*
• Everybody can use them, and
• Anybody can improve them.

Because no one owns it, few promote it or defend. Sure, major companies promote their connections to it (and when you connect to it, you are part of it) but they are promoting the broadband connection. And the biggest ones (Comcast, AT&T, Verizon, Time Warner Cable, etc) will do anything to increase the profits they make by being one of the few means of connecting to the Internet -- including charging much more and limiting what people can do over their connection, etc. This is one reason the connections from major corporations are so heavily tilted toward download speeds -- they want consumers to consume content. Just about every community network built in the last 3-4 years offers symmetrical connections by contrast.

Last I heard, the fastest cable offering in the upstream direction was 12Mbps. Cox, our cable provider in Santa Barbara, gives us about 25Mbps down, but only 4Mbps up. Last time I talked to them (in June 2009), their plan was to deliver up to 100Mbps down eventually, but still only about 5Mbps up.