Internet Architecture and Innovation

* Book: Internet Architecture and Innovation. Barbara van Schewick. MIT Press, 2010

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Abstract

"The Internet's remarkable growth has been fueled by innovation. New applications continually enable new ways of using the Internet, and new physical networking technologies increase the range of networks over which the Internet can run. Questions about the relationship between innovation and the Internet's architecture have shaped the debates over open access to broadband networks, network neutrality, nondiscriminatory network management, and future Internet architecture. In Internet Architecture and Innovation, Barbara van Schewick explores the economic consequences of Internet architecture, offering a detailed analysis of how it affects the economic environment for innovation.

Van Schewick describes the design principles on which the Internet's original architecture was based—modularity, layering, and the end-to-end arguments—and shows how they shaped the original architecture. She analyzes in detail how the original architecture affected innovation—in particular, the development of new applications—and how changing the architecture would affect this kind of innovation.

Van Schewick concludes that the original architecture of the Internet fostered application innovation. Current changes that deviate from the Internet's original design principles reduce the amount and quality of application innovation, limit users' ability to use the Internet as they see fit, and threaten the Internet's ability to realize its economic, social, cultural, and political potential. If left to themselves, network providers will continue to change the internal structure of the Internet in ways that are good for them but not necessarily for the rest of us. Government intervention may be needed to save the social benefits associated with the Internet's original design principles."

Review

"Barbara van Schewick’s book is an extended — and I do mean extended — love letter to the “end-to-end” principle and Net neutrality. Weighing in at almost 600 pages, van Schewick goes on much longer than she needed to make her core argument: The structure of the current Internet is sacrosanct and must be preserved. Deviations from end-to-end or “neutrality,” however defined, are to be discouraged or disallowed. “[D]ifferent ways of structuring the Internet result in very different environments for its development,” she argues. “If left to themselves, network providers will continue to change the internal structure of the Internet in ways that are good for them, but not necessarily for the rest of us,” she says. (p. 377)

Of course, we’ve heard all these arguments made ad nauseam in the Net neutrality wars, but to her credit, van Schewick makes them far more eloquently in this book than they have ever been made before. She does a particularly good job of walking the reader through the guts of the Internet’s current architecture. The layman will find the book quite challenging in light of its highly technical nature, however. But her grasp of the subject is impressive." (http://techliberation.com/2010/12/10/the-10-most-important-info-tech-policy-books-of-2010/)

About the Author

Barbara van Schewick is Associate Professor of Law at Stanford Law School, Director of Stanford Law School's Center for Internet and Society, and Associate Professor (by courtesy) of Electrical Engineering in Stanford University's Department of Electrical Engineering.