Will mesh networks necessarily evolve in an ‘open’ direction? I see this as an assumption, and one which is not necessarily true.

We’re seeing a progression in the nature of tele/com over a 50+ year period. Pre-Carterphone and the deregulation process, you owned nothing. You might even have been forced to rent your CPE from a limited telco-controlled selection.

30 years from now, we anticipate a complete reversal. The users, directly or indirectly, come to own the network. That could be via direct ownership, such as mesh or customer-built fiber; indirect, via some co-operative, housing or municipal association; or “reversed” where the other “end” of the end-to-end stupid network is someone like Google who subsidises connectivity. In any case, the telco has no more say over the transport than the company who laid and maintains the road outside your house has over where you drive.

We’re just in a messy middle transition phase with some unfortunate path-dependent detours.

The physics suggest a very large future for mesh networks. We can make up for hard Shannon limits by substituting computational effort in the devices. This computational effort is currently limited by our technology and imagination rather than physics, and seems set to remain so for several decades to come.

Now for the hard question: will the co-operative, open model of the IETF/IEEE necessarily triumph in implementation of mesh networks?

Future A: We end up with self-configuring, open, abuse-resistant mesh networks that easily attach themselves at suitable points to open Internet long-distance backhaul. The problem is mainly one of technical co-ordination (e.g. as the Wi-Fi alliance does for 802.11 interoperability).

Future B: We end up with closed mesh networks “owned” by those with the greatest distribution muscle. These need not be telcos; indeed, MotoNet and NokiaConnect are just as likely. The problem becomes one of economic co-ordination. For example, Nokia mesh devices are more attractive because Nokia has negotiated a broader coverage of back-haul provisioning and interconnect agreements; and Nokia’s 30% global market share gives it a decisive distribution advantage in attaining a critical mass of devices.

(If you’re a long-dated bond holder of a mobile operator’s debt, you’re excused now if you need to make a quick trip to the barf room, since neither scenario seems to play well for you.)

I find it really hard to discriminate between these futures. Are closed networks like Skype an inevitible short-term solution to integration issues of new technology, with the long-term always the property of open networks?

Sticking with the app layer as an example, will Skype prosper because it’s “cost of entry” is zero, unlike the prior closed e-mail operators like Compuserve? What are the real determinants of whether networked systems become ‘open’ or ‘closed’? Do those terms really have meaning?

Open for comments!

via Telepocalypse.