Internet Connectivity

Typology

Proposed by Rollie Cole:

"Is it reasonable to say that "connectivity" consists of at least three pieces, and that the policy interventions appropriate to each might vary?

I suggest, based on the discussion on this list, the following three:

(1) last/first mile -- from home to community aggregation point.

(2) middle mile -- from community aggregation point(s) to national backbone

(3) national backbone

A possible 4th piece (4) might be "specialized alternatives," such as the high-speed research networks, the closed military network, private networks among sites of a large corporation, etc. These tend to be bigger and faster speed than category (1), and if they connect to the public Internet, it is usually at the national backbone level." (arch-econ mailing list, June 2008)