How does the Internet Work?
(And How is that Linked to Competition?)
Pranesh Prakash
Fellow
Centre for Internet and Society
Affiliated Fellow
Information Society Project, Yale Law School
Public Interest Technology Fellow
New America
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Is the Internet Competitive?
Internet vs. Internets
Cooperative benefits vs. Competitive benefits
Centralized or Decentralized?
Both
Domain Names (Centralized)
ISPs (Decentralized)
Standards (Centralized)
Internet Standards
Royalty-Free
(Avoid Patents!)
Openly Developed
Consensus, not Regulation
But there's much that isn't "Internet"
(Web Services, Browsers, Media Codecs, OSes, etc.)
End-to-End Principle
Competition in Internet Infrastructure
Devices
(Smartphones + Patents)
(Proprietary/Non-Standard Interfaces)
(Power Cables!)
Competition in Internet Infrastructure
Eyeball ISPs
(Net Neutrality / Anti-discrimination)
Competition in Internet Infrastructure
Networks / Telecoms
(Spectrum Allocation)
(Right of Way)
(Local Loop Unbundling / Open Access)
Competition in Internet Infrastructure
ICANN
(As a tax collector)
(As a regulator)
(Domain names)
(TLDs)
Web
Browsers
Operating Systems
Internet Infrastructure and Competition
By Pranesh Prakash
