Is the end of the Internet upon us?

By Molly Wood, executive editor, CNET.com
Monday, March 13, 2006

A whole lot of guns are lined up against the Net right now: Net neutrality/two-tiered Internet issues; increasing discomfort over the U.S. control of Internet operation; China's moves to create its own domain system (a possible prelude to a new, country-specific, alternate root system); supposition that, with Vint Cerf and a bunch of dark fiber in hand, Google might be looking to create its own Internet--and of course, there are the viruses, the spam, the scourge on young people that is MySpace, and, how could I forget...porn and pop-ups.

Basically, I'm starting to wonder if the one-Internet-for-all paradigm we've enjoyed so far is about to break and if we can expect a future where we all use smaller, private, for-profit or nonprofit, corporate, and/or political Internets according to our various locations and interests. Let me put it this way: it's all too likely that George W. Bush didn't misspeak when he mentioned "the Internets." The military has probably already built an alternate Internet--if not more than one, and it's looking all too possible that the Net itself is about to fracture into a mess of cliques, privately owned networks, and glorified Usenets.

Breaking what's broken
From a purely technical standpoint, the current Internet architecture has some problems. Many people, including the folks who originally helped build the sucker, think it's just about tapped out in terms of spam, viruses, DoS attacks, increasing numbers of users, and new types of bandwidth-hogging devices (cell phones, DVRs, Xboxes, cars, Wi-Fi-enabled everything). And as a consortium of Internet pioneers and up-and-coming engineers work on ways to fix the current structure, they're starting to eyeball something called metanets as a possible way to let multiple Internets run in parallel, routing communications into ever-emerging protocols that are specifically tailored for, say, streaming video.

Meanwhile, a whole mess of political and commercial troubles face the Net. The telcos, who see the Internet as a delivery medium that they control, want to try to charge content providers a second time for that delivery--first, for using the bandwidth in the first place (the current pay structure), then again for "prioritized delivery" of that content. The scheme is called tiered Internet, and it would create classes of content delivery the way airplanes currently have classes of seating. Companies that could pay what Preston Gralla has so eloquently dubbed cyberextortion would have a better chance of seeing their content delivered in a timely and reliable fashion.

Companies, individuals, start-ups, or nonprofit corporations who couldn't or wouldn't pay? Well, you get less legroom in coach, buster. That's just how it goes. And one of the primary targets of tiered Internet accusations is that big old bandwidth hog, Google. Consider that Google has been buying dark fiber for a while and hired Internet pioneer Vint Cerf to help build a network infrastructure that, realistically, has every chance of becoming a separate GoogleNet, and you start to see that a future fracture is all too possible. And GoogleNet could be just the beginning.

Yeah, so? What's the big deal?
Want porn? Hang out at PornNet. China could build its own ChinaNet and have no more fears about Google or Yahoo indexing dissident speech and making it available to its nicely sequestered citizens, or about blogs creeping in with their capitalist, democratic, totalitarian, pedestrian, or hey, pornographic viewpoints. Parents could safely deposit their children on KidNet and restrict access to any other Internets, while they hang out downstairs and do secure banking on MoneyNet. We'd visit various Internets the way we now visit various Web sites and blogs, but without any outside chatter, interference, nefarious information, viruses, or spam sneaking through.

Each Net will have a different interface, a different connection paradigm--forget about using one browser interface to get to one Web site, unless, of course, you're determined to stick to that old saw, the World Wide Web. (I mean, who even uses that anymore?) Some might be text-based, some might look like applications, some will, of course, build their own "browser" interfaces--and imagine the patent lawsuits that will result from that, eh? Some Internets will be free, most will probably be subscription, some might be invite-only, a fair number will be free but advertising-supported--and that's an advertiser's dream, right? I mean, talk about a targeted audience.

Illegal file- and movie-sharing could become a thing of the past, since it will be relegated to TorrentNet, and once the streams are narrowed to a specific set of routers and fibers, it'll be a cinch to track down every single user. But on the other hand, you might just as well see an explosion of darknets, in which small groups create fast, agile, mobile Internets that are used exclusively for file sharing or who knows what else. Imagine if organized crime could have its very own Internet; imagine if Osama bin Laden fans or terrorists, instead of blathering in Orkut forums for all the world to see and renounce, were quietly building more virulent support in the safety of an unmoderated, unrestrictive, uncritical TerrorNet?

The human condition
In sum, we'd visit, subscribe to, restrict ourselves to, or be restricted to these various Internets the way we currently absorb Web sites. So, what's the problem? Well, for one thing, information disappears and becomes harder to access. Google won't work in the new Net order, that's for sure: sure, they'll find a way to search across multiple Internets, but they'll be locked out of private networks, secure networks, darknets, and pure commercial Internets. The consumer cost could increase dramatically--especially if most private Internets are subscription-based. ISPs would become IsSPs--Internets Service Providers. No one provider, most likely, could offer access to more than a few different Internets, so you'd be limited by subscription packages available from the telcos, or you'd be looking at multiple monthly bills or confusing à la carte choices.

You'd face staggering interoperability issues. Imagine if you couldn't call someone's cell phone unless they were on the same network as you. Suddenly, you'd have that problem with e-mail, with link-sharing, with instant messaging. No more Skype, if Voice over IP works only on networks that actually use IP. With multiple networks to support and maintain, outages would be more common and reliability would dwindle. And then, of course...and you know it's coming...you lose all of the innovation, all of the information sharing, all of the openness, all of the revolution that a single, messy, worldwide, insecure, porn-filled, Wild West, speech-freeing, wonderful, World Wide Web-enabling Internet.

The problem is, I'm not sure an Internet splinter is avoidable. There are already Internet separatist treatises out there on the Web--how ironic. And it's possible that it's just our human nature to split off into the groups and communities that make us most comfortable. Our differences in politics, morals, ideologies, and governments will probably force the inevitable upon us--not to mention our human desire to make ever-increasing piles of money off of our best inventions. Nevertheless, I'm keeping hope alive. I hope we can save the Internet from ourselves. I like the idea of having at least this one thing that we all share, that works for all of us, and that can change all of our lives with just a couple of keystrokes. The Internet is possibly the best thing we humans have ever built. It'd be all too tragic to see us turn around and cannibalize it.