[e2e] dynamic ISP selection

[Paulo Mendes]

I could not agree more.

Let me add a few more lines of thought on this to go a little beyond the
dynamic ISP selection allowed by the unbundled model. In the past few
years the end-users gained extra power with systems that allow them to
play the role of connectivity providers (they were already a kind of
content providers with p2p). If we join to this the increasing
availability of open source tools and open systems, maybe we can picture
a brave new world.

Technically, this is not so difficult to do, and the prove if the
existence of companies like FON and Wisher, already mentioned before in
this mailing list. However, how BT, Virgin, T-mobile, ..., would see
this is a totally different story.

Paulo

Jon Crowcroft wrote:
> so in the rest of the world where we have competition in the last mile 
> (i.e. not the US:), it is surprisingly tricky to change ISP - 
> even though some massive fraction of xDSL is unbundled - 
> 
> [and the regulators looked recently and discovered that the widespread 
> competition between cable modem and (surpirsingly) broadband wireless access
> (e.g. umts or high speed packet, or even wimax a bit) 
> means that you get techno-disversity as well as economic diversity
> 
> in the UK for example, there's something like 35M
> phone lines that bt owns copper up to the exchange building, 
> but then they get switced onto a humungous ATM net ('colossus'), 
> and can pop out at layer to below IP 
> in any virtual broadband provider's POP 
> 
> (asde: this business is almost like the way that 
> some cell phone service providers work who don't actually own spectrum, 
> but make a business out of leasing spectrum off of others- 
> i think Virgin does  this with (maybe) t-mobile's )...their businesses are
> basically being creative with contract models....i.e. combining other services
> and content...
> 
> so anyhow, in the uk (sorry to be so blighty-centric)
> you can change your utilities pretty much once a month 
> (I just changed gas&electricity twice in the last two months to
> get better deals) as the same virtualisation (unbundling) 
> of last mile is done, and the core provider 
> (actually 2 layers-  grid and generation) 
> are seperated cleanly...
> 
> so given i can go on the web and get my gas, electricity, water, sewage changed , 
> why is it not possible to get a 
> SPOT price
> for broadband internet?
> 
> i cannot see any technical barrier to this whatsoever:)
> 
> j.


-- 
-----------------------------------------------------
Paulo Mendes, Ph.D
Area Leader, Internet Architectures and Networking
Telecommunication and Multimedia Unit
INESC Porto
Tel. +351 22 209 4264
Fax. +351 22 209 4050
http://telecom.inescporto.pt/~ian