Will the Internet be free in the future?

Submitted by redingerforcongress t3_y1pxjl in Futurology

After hearing a story about a single individual choosing to cut off Internet to a large region of people, it made me think about Internet freedom in general.

If we're allowing individuals to have effective kill switches on the Internet, will there be a free Internet? Imagine for a second someone being able to cut off Internet in your area because they were paid more money to make you suffer.

Sadly, I wish we didn't have to live in this sort of society, but it seems people allow this to occur without ramifications or accountability.

I'm curious what your thoughts are on this matter in regard.

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timecoyote t1_irz7rq0 wrote

A lot of stuff could and should be free. Internet, glasses, tampons. I mean, how did we even get here? A hundred thousand years ago we could just pick some berries with our titties out and call it a day. Now I gotta work forty hours a week to barely afford rent in an apartment that's too small for a couch.

In short, I hope so, but I won't get my hopes up.

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Ichipurka t1_is7p2vh wrote

A 100 years ago you could go pick some berries.

100 years have passed, and suddenly there’s 5 more people who want to pick the same berries. And at least two of them want to have twice as much as you do.

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Voice_of_Humanity t1_irzb45b wrote

So this is an interesting question. I'm going to assume you mean free as in beer (as opposed to free from undue influence or political control).

I work as a Network Engineer for a local electric utility. My focus is high speed WAN networking (10 Gbps to 400 Gbps interfaces). I can tell you that this type of communication infrastructure is EXPENSIVE. We use optical switches in the “core” of our core network. Each one is about a million dollars (each pair of chassis at a location supports about 4.4 Tbps if so equipped… we’re currently running about 1.2 Tbps but will grow!). Then there’s the fiber.. That can be several hundred thousand per mile to string, pole mounted (even more if underground). Then there is all the supporting infrastructure… 2-post racks (a few hundred dollars each), power (it should be DC with lots of battery backup), the room for the equipment with AC, security, monitoring, etc. The pole mounted fiber requires a lot of equipment (horseshoes to provide slack and fiber storage, splice cases, etc.). And there is almost always a set of in-ground vaults (such as those made by Old Castle). And you need trained personnel to install, manage, operate, maintain, and optimize the network. This means very specialized tools, servers to support network management systems, trucks with lifts, splicing trailers, testing equipment, and more. And getting permits is expensive and time consuming. It can take a year to place a 4-inch conduit under a railroad track. Crossing freeways or rivers is a nightmare. We have whole departments dedicated to getting permits. The surveys (Is there enough room on the pole? Is the pole sound enough for the extra weight. Who owns the pole?) and documentation (we use ArcGIS… very complex GIS program) are on going expenses.

So someone has to pay for this. Supporting lots of customers means each customer’s cost is relatively low (I happen to have fiber Internet… I pay $65.00 per month for 1 Gbps up and down, no caps... I consider that cheap).

Having said that, I’d like to share my Internet. I believe in community based Internet Services… using my WiFi or unlicensed spectrum. I think communities should encourage and build these networks. But they will never be as resilient as a well funded private endeavor.

We should have universal Internet access. Fiber is being rolled out at a faster rate every year. I would love to see municipal owned fiber access (even though my CenturyLink fiber is cheap and in three years has NEVER had an outage… through snow, ice, wind, storms, and fire… amazing). But even community owned fiber is going to cost.

I also have high hopes for Starlink, Amazon’s Project Kuiper, and OneWeb… While Starlink is expensive (I have a farm on which I have Starlink service), it will offer Gigabit speeds, hopefully at the same $110.00 per month it currently charges. Once other constellations are in place, competition kicks in. Prices go down.

But I’m not sure a reliable, fast, and widely available Internet will ever be free.

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neuralbeans t1_irzgtyz wrote

It's clear that OP meant free from interference. I'm not sure where you got the free-as-in price from.

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Outside-Car1988 t1_is2uu1u wrote

The internet has become an essential service. It is hard to job hunt, pay bills, even lookup a phone number without it. I can't see how it could be blocked, at least locally. Dictatorships, and communist countries, well that's another story.

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c0rzaaa t1_irzaxm2 wrote

Possibly elon musks starlink could make this Possible

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throwawaysexyboy2U t1_irzfpm9 wrote

I wouldn’t trust that man to turn on my computer.

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mango-vitc t1_is04xn0 wrote

Your blinded by the Reddit Musk outrage as of late. The starlink constellation will drastically change the way broadband services are delivered and priced.

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mobrocket t1_is0q9u7 wrote

You know starlink isn't new right?

Satellite internet has been around for decades and still has a lot of the same problems

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mango-vitc t1_is0sep4 wrote

Of course I know that. But it has never had the investment that starlink has or the commitment.

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mobrocket t1_is0x5mj wrote

Be careful buying what Elon says.

Hyperloop, robo taxis, hell Twitter.

How about that cybertruck.

He says a lot of bullshit, don't assume anything from him.

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mango-vitc t1_is0zeth wrote

It’s easy to distinguish. But starlink is happening.

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mobrocket t1_is19utk wrote

Okay. But you are acting like it's going to change everything...

It's not really... It can't compete with Fiber, Cable, or 5G

It's good for rural areas.

But again tesla almost bankrupt needed government bailout, space x is basically backed by the government, I don't see the government backing up this project... And it may not be profitable enough to survive long term let alone change the industry

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mango-vitc t1_is1apdw wrote

I don’t think 5G will be as pervasive as advertised. If starlink continues to prove reliable I would possibly switch as my single broadband carrier where I leave is unreliable for years. Down for hours at least once a week. They don’t care, no other provider serves the neighborhood.

Rural areas will definitely make a difference, as would cell carriers starting to use the service now.

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mobrocket t1_is1ez8f wrote

They had satellite internet for decades. It's not a new service.

5g and onward is coming.

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Voice_of_Humanity t1_is8xj7m wrote

This is true...Satellite Internet has been available for decades... ViaSat, Wild Blue Yonder, Hughes Net... All Geosynchronous, very, very slow... no support for VPN with extremely high latency (more than 22,000 miles up). Not suitable for voice calls, video services (movies, video conferences, etc.) or gaming.

Starlink (and Amazon's Project Kuiper, and OneWeb) is significantly different. LEO satellites have very low (almost fiber) latency. And the bandwidth is far greater (20 Gbps for v1 satellite with 80 Gbps for v2 satellites). Now, that bandwidth is shared by everyone in that same satellite spot beam, the more spot beams (and there are multiple per satellite), the smaller each beam is (each with 20 or 80 Gbps), the fewer people using that beam's bandwidth, the more bandwidth every person has... and the more satellites, the more spot beams. That's why the number of satellites matters. Via Sat and others have one or two satellites covering the entirety of North America... they have a few spot beams per satellite. And while they do have significant bandwidth (not as much as Starlink, I believe) it's shared among LOTS of people.

FULL DISCLOSURE... I bought my parents Starlink (so much better in every way compared to the local DSL available in their small Central Oregon town) and I have Starlink deployed at a farm in Hillsboro Oregon. Again, far better than any other option I had.

5G

As a Network Engineer, I was part of a small team looking at 5G vs. alternatives for connectivity to remote substations and communication sites (and as backup access for our generation fleet).

Two problems with 5G (I mean besides the hype). First, coverage isn't increasing... right now it will have, someday, the same foot print as 4G LTE. And right now its not even close to the 4G foot print. But there are SO MANY places where you can't get 4G or where the signal is so weak the service is spotty. Second... the hype was around speeds... up to 1 Gbps (sometimes faster). Sure... using millimeter wavelengths. But using that very high frequency spectrum means REALLY short distances (like you can't even cover a medium size stadium... Verizon tried, had to use multiple base stations to cover a stadium...https://www.5gworldpro.com/blog/2019/09/21/128-verizon-s-5g-network-can-t-cover-an-entire-nfl-stadium/ ). So carriers are scrambling to deploy mid-band frequencies... That's good but its only 2 to maybe 3 times the throughput (we're talking 60 Mbps to maybe 120 Mbps in the vast majority of cases). Nice improvement, no doubt, but hardly revolutionary.

And as a fixed wireless home Internet service... well, the reviews are very spotty. Maybe good if its the only thing you can get.

Another minor issue is the 5G standards aren't complete yet. One advantage 5G is supposed to have is support for NB-IoT (Narrow Band - Internet of Things). That standard is still in development.

And while they say they're friends.. WiFi and 5G are more like frienemies. Nokia, Ericsson, and other 5G providers are trying to convince industrial equipment manufacturers to add 5G transceivers to their equipment, saying its better than Wifi... and John Deere is deploying 5G in their factories. But upcoming WiFi 7 erases most of the advantages 5G has in an industrial setting (fast setup, support for hundreds or thousands of devices, multiple NB-IoT profiles, and the like). Not sure 5G will be very competitive in the industrial setting.

And what about 6G? Right now, the white papers and research papers make it sound like its a local only network... almost a desktop area network (DAN??). Very fast terahertz speeds but at a distance of only a few feet. Connecting monitors, MFPs, Webcams, etc. The protocols I've seen under development seem to focus on things like device connectivity. Though we're pretty early in the discussions.

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AJ_Gaming125 t1_isuy42i wrote

It's basically worldwide accessible high speed internet.. look I dislike the guy as much as you, but the engineers he's hired have developed this and its a pretty good concept. Once he has enough satellites up he's going to probably become exponentially richer than he already is.

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mobrocket t1_isw01dq wrote

I get that, but again you can't trust this guy.

None of this is new tech, there is a reason other companies like Comcast hasn't already done it.

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AJ_Gaming125 t1_isw07uc wrote

It isn't new tech, but he's the only one doing it on the scale he is.

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mobrocket t1_isw0qna wrote

Well most companies probably won't get the free money like he does. He is already asking the US gov to pay for starlink in Ukraine

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Severe_Spare9272 t1_is307al wrote

Elon wants to put a microchip in peoples 🧠. No thanks

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mobrocket t1_is42axu wrote

Who cares about that

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throwawaysexyboy2U t1_is1zqh6 wrote

Who are you to tell me I am being blinded? I despise the man just for the way he is.

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GI_X_JACK t1_is6wvcx wrote

What story are you talking about? Were would a single individual be able to cut off internet for other people for money?

When the internet was first made public, it was in the period after the cold war, before the GWOT, and the US had no conflicts. The people who ran the internet largely took a very "hands off" approach. It wasn't politicized because there wasn't a need.

As far a physically cutting off internet? even cell phones? Starlink? I mean people cut power, and stop the plumbing occasionally all the time for nefarious reasons, it always gets turned back on sooner or later.

It wasn't until the early 2010s that it really started getting mainstream, and started becoming a new front for nation-state espionage and war. Two big points: one, this is more the norm for the US. Two, the internet is mainstream, so cannot kinda duck out by being some weird corner of society. It will be ruled as an extension of such.

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1AlphaGeek1 t1_irzk08q wrote

Internet Freedom is a perpetuated myth, my friend. You are using a gateway provided by a third party system to access the net and post this question. Similarly, I am using a gateway provided by another third party to answer you. Without the other party, neither you nor I would have been able to access it, let alone use the net. This hands a lot of power to such companies. Even if the government stopped interfering completely, such providers still have effectively unlimited power over their consumers.

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nymh123 t1_irzkb8w wrote

Exactly, most of top searches are heavily groomed. Duckduckgo is so much better in this way vs google

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