This is an international issue. In some countries it is addressed better than others. (In France, for example, I understand that the layers are separated, and my colleague in Paris attributes getting 24Mb/s net, a phone with free international dialing and digital TV for 30euros/month to the resulting competition.) In the US, there have been threats to the concept, and a wide discussion about what to do. That is why, though I have written and spoken on this many times, I blog about it now.
Twenty-seven years ago, the inventors of the Internet[1] designed an architecture[2] which was simple and general. Any computer could send a packet to any other computer. The network did not look inside packets. It is the cleanness of that design, and the strict independence of the layers, which allowed the Internet to grow and be useful. It allowed the hardware and transmission technology supporting the Internet to evolve through a thousandfold increase in speed, yet still run the same applications. It allowed new Internet applications to be introduced and to evolve independently.
Daily Archives: May 2, 2006
Water Worries
Ron Seely digs deep into Madison’s water woes:
Students at East High School were among the roughly 9,000 people who, for a short time at least, were drinking city water contaminated with high levels of an industrial pollutant that can cause liver, kidney or lung damage.
Nobody would have known that by reading the Madison Water Utility’s consumer confidence report data for that year.
The federal health standard for the chemical, carbon tetrachloride, is 5 parts per billion. In October 2000, the level in the city’s well No. 3 tested at 8.3 parts per billion.
But the utility’s annual drinking water quality report listed the maximum level found at only 2.9 parts per billion. Utility officials say it was a typo.
More:
- >
- 20,000 Water Samples Tested Each Year
- More Money and Action
- Some mains in system date to 1880
Modern Joint Operating Agreements
Dan Gillmor looks at Hearst’s deal with MediaNews Group to acquire four newspapers. Madison has had one of these for years – a $120M annual arrangement that has kept the Cap Times going despite its very small circulation. Joint operating agreements were protected by congress years ago, as a way to “preserve daily newspapers”. The time has long since arrived to eliminate this relic.
Dave Zweifel passes along his experience at the American Society of Newspaper Editors’ convention recently.