Giles:
> > I think of i-mode
> as
> >the business model that incentivizes and rewards content providers...
Peter:
> This is exactly the point that seems to be missed so often. I-mode is a
> business model that happens to utilize CHTML.
"Happens to" leaves more to chance than was really the case - it's part
of the equation, actually, that CHTML is a subset of HTML, and not
something newfangled, with a learning curve. This neuronal-level
compatibility mattered even in the (relative) WWW backwater of Japan,
I suspect.
There is more to the business model than the technology, however....
Giles:
> >I actually do not know what overseas carriers are waiting for. They do
not
> >need NTT to announce the arrival of i-mode.
Look at it another way. They don't *have* an NTT to chop
through the Gordian Knot of an old problem: who defines the
de facto standard, and how? Monopolies are good for
something, sometimes. Schumpeter pointed out that they
aren't distracted by having to look over their shoulders
all the time. They enjoy certain efficiencies that, for defining
protocols, oligopolies don't automatically have. See
below.
> > They can try introducing chtml
> >browsers and using the "content-alliance" and billing business model NTT
> >uses. If their networks can handle packet data, and deliver service that
> >delivers content quickly and reliably, they can call that service
anything
> >they want and start doing business, because people will pay for it.
Yes, but who loses? And how powerful are they? Pure competition
is an ideal seldom achieved in practice.
There is a region roughly circumscribed by Kentucky in the U.S. that
was unusually rich in game when white settlers reached it. This
area was also surrounded by Native American settlements, whose
inhabitants hunted within it, but left it otherwise unpopulated. White
Kentuckian-wannabes moved right in - and promptly got slaughtered
by tribes on all sides. They didn't know the rules: there was a treaty
arrived at among the tribes after 200 years of war, saying
that anybody could hunt there, but nobody could live there.
Telecom in much of the deregulated world bears some resemblance
to this situation. It is quite tribal, but mutually interdependent
as well. WAP comes out of a standards process that reminds
me very much of what I've seen of ITU/OSI developments - rather
slow compared to Internet protocol development, but nevertheless
difficult to unseat in the areas closest to both home operations and cross-
border operations, of participating telecom operators. (I.e., in the
network management protocols arena.) The resemblance has been
remarked upon already, and I believe it's no coincidence.
Some consider WAP fundamentally wrong in its approach, but it's a
matter of perspective, perhaps. Part of its purpose might have been
political, even "cultural" in how it appealed to telecom company
mentalities around issues of competition and cooperation in protocol
arenas; these companies are, after all, deeply ambivalent about both
competing with each other and cooperating. Protocol definition is
one of their few points of civilized contact.
In the above metaphor: imagine those American Indian tribes
realizing the destabilizing power of the gun on their Pax Kentuckia, and
agreeing either to not use guns in Kentucky, or to use them only within
agreed-on guidelines. That pow-wow could even be hygienic in
other ways - they could bury any recently-emerged hatchets in
the plenary sessions. White settlers would curl their lips in disgust at
such sub-optimal (or gratuitously optimal) use of hunting technology,
not being privy to history, and not knowing the native languages.
Given Japanese history and culture, and the long tradition of
avoiding "destructive competition" (i.e., "competition, period")
a company like NTT would probably understand this situation
almost intuitively. An agreement to agree on standards before
proceeding is an agreement to slow things down, first and
foremost. And why would someone do that? WAP was
probably somewhat a reflection of a mutual distaste for
competition among the incumbents, when they saw a chance that
they could work out a way in which *they* get ALL the
venison. CLECs as ISPs was probably their worst nightmare.
> Europe is perched on the edge of packet networks; we may then see an
> explosion of I-mode type services. There is nothing stopping operators
using
> the same billing models and 'content-alliances' as NTT - other then shear
> greed. Most European operators have tried to keep control (and the revenue
> streams) with WAP; the I-mode model would require a massive paradigm
shift.
Well, massive paradigm shifts are what the Internet is good at. From
a discussion in the Napster/Gnutella/Freenet debate: "The Internet
detects greed as damage, and routes around it." Will that work
in this case, though? WAP looks a lot like oligopoly decommodification
of protocols. While Microsoft is barely strong enough to do this
monopolistically in a few areas, the telecom companies of the West are
certainly stronger en masse than any Microsoft. True Internet mobile
telephony may then depend, finally, on the weakness of attempting to
centralize everything. This is a classic problem with in telecom,
one that (take it from me, an eyewitness) breeds a lot of parasitic
technical activity. Which, in turn, breeds not just high costs, but...bugs.
In this view, server crashes might be relevant after all.
Michael Turner
www.idiom.com/~turner
leap@gol.com
Received on Sat Aug 12 10:00:02 2000