New Internet Infrastructure Coalition Reminds Us That Internet Infrastructure Goes Beyond Just Telcos

from the good-to-see dept

Tue, Sep 18th 2012 12:07am — Mike Masnick

One of the more frustrating things in watching policy debates concerning the internet is the assumption that "internet infrastructure" means the telcos (and, to some extent, the cablecos). There are a lot of other players who really build the nuts and bolts of the internet, and their views do not always match with AT&T's and Verizon's. So it's great to see the launch of a new trade group, called the Internet Infrastructure Coalition, made up a bunch of those "other guys." That includes web hosting firms, domain registrars, and tool providers for those infrastructure providers (like cpanel). The coalition came together out of a group of companies like this who helped fight against SOPA and PIPA, knowing that such laws were bad for infrastructure providers (AT&T and Verizon, in the meantime, remained mostly quiet on SOPA and PIPA). At the very least, having these players stand up and speak out about how the internet infrastructure is made up of a bunch of players beyond the big telcos would be good. Too often those guys drive the discussion, often at the expense of other important players...

Filed Under: infrastructure, innovation, policy, trade associations
Companies: i2 coalition, internet infrastructure coalition

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Anonymous Coward, 18 Sep 2012 @ 12:44am

According to a market research study by Tier1 Research, the Internet infrastructure industry generated and estimated direct and indirect $46 billion in annual revenue in 2010 with expected 20% growth by 2013, and a trade flow to the United States of $9.2 billion. New jobs more often than not require a reliable infrastructure for the Internet, and the industry drives innovation at every level.

Mike, why don't you call them out on their made up numbers and slippery "direct and indirect" logic?

Oh wait, you support them, so you won't question them.

Carry on!
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Anonymous Coward, 18 Sep 2012 @ 12:54am

Re:
How about you provide substance to support your argument?

Oh, wait, that would require work and critical thinking!

Carry on!
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Anonymous Coward, 18 Sep 2012 @ 1:07am

Re: Re:
Huh? I am only using Mike's logic. As soon as they blabber about "indirect" Mike usually has kittens. Not for this fine upstanding group, they can shovel all the shit they want together and Mike will give it the old Techdirt thumbs up.

You don't care about one sided stuff? You don't feel like perhaps you are being a little mislead around here?
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The eejit (profile), 18 Sep 2012 @ 1:33am

Re: Re: Re:
I suspect that where you'rew having the fail is that, in the US, most of the infrastructure was paid for by tax breaks and subsidies, at remarkably little costto the telcos.

In the UK, for example, British Telecom is the sole provider of backbone infrastructure: however, as part of the funding of the expansion, it will be made to allow others on for the cost of providing the backbone plus pennies on the Gigabyte.

And for what it's worth, I also heavily disagree on using indirect contributions to the economy.
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Judah Johns, 18 Sep 2012 @ 5:09am

Re:
I think you are missing the point. Though some of the backbone of the Internet was government subsidized, the majority of the infrastructure of the Internet is run by small to medium sized business. Even some of the biggest things now, like the latest undersea cables being put into the ocean are privately funded.

But Mike was talking about the jobs that the Internet creates. Think of how many jobs would be affected if you just killed off Softlayer, UK2, RackSpace and ServInt... that number would be hard to calculate, but it would be ridiculously high if what affected them affected all hosted service providers, which is what this coalition aims to work against--laws and policies that are damaging to the Internet's SMBs.
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Ninja (profile), 18 Sep 2012 @ 5:28am

Re: Re: Re: Re:
He's completely missing the point. But I also agree with the direct/indirect thing. What they seem to be calling indirect here is the huge world of Internet based businesses that rely on what these infrastructure players provide. The troll above refers to the criticism that Mike directed towards the MAFIAA in previous articles when they include flower shop jobs in their "indirectly supported jobs" list. But there's one main difference here, in my point of view, is that if the MAFIAA goes down these players will still stay afloat with other sources of revenue (indie producers and non movie related consumers) while if the basic Internet infrastructure players suffer the ones dependent on them will have nowhere to run.
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Chuck Norris' Enemy (deceased) (profile), 18 Sep 2012 @ 7:22am

Re:
Because that was the point of Mike's post, to lavish praise on their numbers and statistics.
...
Oh wait! It wasn't!
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Anonymous Coward, 18 Sep 2012 @ 6:40pm

Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:
"He's completely missing the point"

No, I am not missing the point. Rather, I am doing exactly what Mike does when "the other side" puts out a report, makes statements, or forms a group like this. I am ignoring the valid points and information, and I am going right to the place where there puff up their importance and pointing at it.

In Mike's world, this is more than enough to discredit the entire organization and it's goals, because clearly if they cannot figure out their own worth in the economy in a manner that passes Mike's personal test, then they are clearly full of it.

See, it really, really sucks ass when Mike's standards are applied evenly. Suddenly both sides of the discussion appear to be full of shit.
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Ninja (profile), 19 Sep 2012 @ 6:18am

Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:
Yes you are missing the point entirely... And your precious MAFIAA has done far more than what's enough to be discredited. Present some biased studies with bogus statistics from this group and we can start talking.
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