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aving used connected computersfor nearly half a century, I takeit for granted that the Internetis about seamless connectivity

that starts locally, at home. However,to most people, the Internet is some-thing they access only after agreeing topay a service provider because, in thepast, the Internet was the province ofuniversity researchers with only limitedaccess to outsiders.

This view must change if we are torealize the benefits of the Internet asfundamental infrastructure. When wetalk about Internet access, we accept theidea that the Internet is something witha boundary around it. To access it, wemust negotiate with service providers.

As I wrote in my April column in IEEE Consumer Electronics Magazine, (Not) in Control of Your Home, if weare to connect devices, the so-calledInternet of Things (IoT), we must assumewhat I call ambient connectivity. We can-not have each device being forced tonegotiate for each connection. Even moreproblematic is when we need to deal with

a third party (ISP, Telco, or Cableco) thatmust make a profit from each message,for example, that a medical monitormight send.

To understand the different points ofview, we need to look at the history ofonline services so that we can compareit with a connectivity perspective.

IN THE BEGINNING

Consumer online services started tobecome available in the late 1970s, withProdigy, CompuServe, and AOL beingamong the most well known. Therewere also many small services, knownas bulletin board systems (BBSs), thatallowed people with a similar interest tocreate their own community or club.

The typical mode of remote accesswas the dumb terminal via a dial-upmodem. The modem utilized the exist-ing phone network by treating the dataconnection as another phone call. Youwould have a phone number for eachclub and connect your terminal to thatone specific club. To the phone compa-ny, these calls were just more traffic fortheir intelligent network. Dedicatedresources would be assigned to each callfor the duration of the connection.

The Internet club was different inthat the machines were permanentlyconnected and all of the resources wereavailable at once. This diversity forcedthe separation of the Internet protocol(IP) from application protocols suchas Transmission Control Protocol(TCP). The big innovation in IP was

the minimalist approach of best-effortstransport of the packet.

Until the early 1990s, the Internetwas indeed a closed club in that it waslimited to academic purposes only,although some managed to find ways toexchange mail between the commercialnetworks and systems on the Internet.

Tim Berners-Lee took advantage ofthe opportunity afforded by the wide-spread connectivity of the Internet tocreate a World Wide Web. Today, wesimply say the Web but, in the 1990s,the worldwide reach was the most unbe-lievable aspect. Anyone anywhere couldhost a Web server on his or her PC or atcommercial sites as long as it wasreachable over the Internet. In responseto the demand for Web access, manyBBSs evolved to become ISPs. AOLadded Web access to its repertoire.

Of course, the traditional carrierswanted to get into the business too.They repurposed the infrastructure theyhad built for interactive TV for Internetaccess. The cable TV companies hap-pened to use coaxial cables to extendthe broadband TV signals, hence thename broadband. The telephone com-panies developed asynchronous digitalsubscriber lines (ADSLs) to carry TVand repurposed the technology to con-nect to Internet gateways.

Both broadband and DSL connectiv-ity were modeled on the dialup modemwith an IP address acting like a phonenumber. Connectivity to the Internetwas another service in the mix of ser-vices that included TV channels andtelephone lines. Just like you paid for

each telephone number and each set-top box, the original plan was that you

Digital Object Identifier 10.1109/MCE.2013.2257016 Date of publication: 1 July 2013

The Internet of Things Versusthe Access FramingBy Bob Frankston

H

When we talk aboutInternet access, we acceptthe idea that the Internetis something with aboundary around it.

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JULY 2013 ^ IEEE CONSUMER ELECTRONICS MAGAZINE 57

would pay a monthly fee for an IPaddress for each connected computer.The idea of Internet access as a servicealso fit well into the Federal Communi-cations Commissions regulatoryframework. Or so it seemed.

Indeed, the machines on the Internet

are like a club, just like users on a givenBBS were members of a club. Theaccess metaphor assumes that people areoutside the Internet and need to cross aboundary to get into the club. By estab-lishing a boundary, the carriers can havea business based on charging people forallowing them to cross that boundary.This makes the ability to communicatean exception, not the norm.

A DIFFERENT VIEW

My view of the Internet is very differ-ent from the access paradigm. I wasreminded of this recently when Ireplaced one of my Insteon lightswitches. If I want to use it to turn on aparticular light, I just associate the light(ID# 03.23.45, for example) with theparticular button. I am using this as myexample because it is very clear thatthere is no network as suchthedevices just use whatever wires orradios they can to exchange messages.

This is the way IP works, but welose sight of the essential simplicitywhen we start talking about a localarea network as if it were a separatething rather than just a way to use ourown wires and radios. As owners, wecan add capacity and devices as wewish to meet our own needs. As some-one who has been online since the1960s, it was natural for me to put myhome computers on a network. (At thattime, even having more than one com-puter was unusual.)

In 1994, rather than connecting asingle computer to (computers on) theInternet, I wanted to be able to sharethat connection with the other comput-ers in my house. In doing so, I discov-ered network address translation (NAT)that made my entire home networkappear as a single computer to therest of the Internet. I was working atMicrosoft at the time, but I mostly

worked from home because it was a2,500-mi commute. This distance gaveme a chance to do my own researchand the opportunity to apply this expe-rience by ensuring that Windowsshipped with Internet support for IPand an NAT for Internet Connection

Sharing (ICS) already installed, startingwith Windows 98 SE. My most impor-tant requirement was that it workedboth within the home and in intercon-necting with other machines around theworld. To most people, it was simplyabout shared Web browsing.

As a result, home networks areinterconnected with the rest of theInternet just like university networksare interconnected. The access framing

worked well enough for us to accept it.However, because we do not have own-ership of the wires outside our homes,we cannot invest in more creative waysto use them. While we could use bettertechnology to increase connectivitywithin our homes, we are limited toofferings from providers because myneighbors and I do not own the facili-ties between our houses.

ITS NOT A CAPACITY PROBLEM

Instead of demanding the rights ofownership, we accept the limitationsof the access model. We are limited tothe choices offered, and adding moreproviders only gives us more of thesame. We do not have a capacity prob-lem; we have a metaphor problem,which leads the carriers to try to rein-force the old business model of charg-ing for connections. We need toremove the need to charge for access

by financing the facilities we use as acommon resource, just as we do withroads and sidewalks.

The problems with the concept ofaccess become far more acute andabsurd as we become increasinglymore mobile and expect to be connect-

ed everywhere. We are back to havingeach device needing its own accountfrom one of the providers available ata given location. If we want to seethe weather on our wrist device, wecannot simply connect it. Instead, itmust relay through another connecteddevice, and the providers are now try-ing to set rules for how you can sharea connection.

This is very reminiscent of the1990s effort to limit how many PCscould share a single connection. And,

just like I did then at home, I can workaround this using NATs but with farmore twisting and winding passages.To put it simply, the IoT and the idea ofaccess are at odds. The reason we areexcited about the IoT is that we canfocus on the things without beingbogged down in the complexities ofcommunications, that is, the mechanicsof gaining access.

The lesson of the Internet is that weare all members of the club and notoutsiders. While most clubs need tocollect dues to cover the costs, this clubis likely to recover the costs by elimi-nating the expense of maintaining abarrier around the Internet. But the realbenefit comes when we can take advan-tage of the new opportunities and liter-ally improve the quality of life withconnected health care and other vitalservices. We must be able to do so,unencumbered.

Connectivity itself is very simple.Just as I can simply add an Insteonswitch anywhere without a network,I should be able to use any availableconnection, especially the incredi-bly abundant Wi-Fi. The goal of ambi-ent connectivity is to get the benefits ofbeing a participant rather than being anoutsider who must access someoneelses Internet.

To understand thedifferent points of view,we need to look at thehistory of online servicesso that we can compare itwith a connectivityperspective.