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41 Comments
- zbeast, on 06/30/2008, -1/+24What a totally bad Idea... No thank you, I'm really not interested in seeing my internet bill spike
like oil prices. Fortunately there are so far a lot of reasons why this horror story would not come to past currently.
We have more than enough network bandwidth.. So any "shortage" would have to be artificially created.
Remember Enron... - MattCruikshank, on 06/30/2008, -1/+13To paraphrase South Park:
ENRON DID IT. - comedianX, on 06/30/2008, -1/+13Great, now we can have speculators form the Internet Capacity Holding Co. (ICHC) and drive up the prices of the internet as they did with houses and oil.
- Changa, on 06/30/2008, -1/+11Yaaaay! Like Enron only for the internet...
- ligyron, on 06/30/2008, -1/+9PARIS — There are exchanges where you can buy and sell stocks, futures, pork bellies, wine and even pollution allowances.
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International Telecommunication Union
A United Nations agency created Global View, which tracks standards like mobile network coverage and broadband access.
Why not an exchange for the trading of digital bits and bytes?
“That is my dream,” said Hamadoun Touré, secretary general of the International Telecommunication Union, a United Nations agency based in Geneva that sets international communications standards.
The exchange would let telephone networks, mobile operators, satellite providers and other telecommunications companies trade capacity on their systems.
Network operators predicting bottlenecks could buy extra capacity, ensuring the smooth functioning of phone services, cellphone networks, the Internet and other communication links. Those with excess capacity could sell bandwidth, helping to limit that unprofitable downtime.
Applying a marketplace solution to the allocation of bandwidth, Mr. Touré said, could improve efficiency and reduce prices. That might help with one of his main goals, to bridge the digital divide in places like Africa, he added.
Mr. Touré, who mentioned the idea recently by telephone, is not the first person to think of such an exchange. Enron, the energy and trading company, briefly ran an electronic bandwidth exchange before the company was brought down by financial scandal in 2001.
Perhaps the notoriety of Enron explains why Mr. Touré and his aides quickly cautioned that the idea was nothing more than a dream for now and might never be created. Instead, Mr. Touré said, he was focusing on a more modest plan, one that could be a step toward an exchange: the creation of a real-time database detailing the flow of traffic on the world’s major communications networks.
Mr. Touré said the database could play an essential role in helping networks manage capacity and plan new investments at a time when telecommunications traffic is surging, and when some experts are warning that the growth of voice, data and particularly video traffic threatens to create traffic jams.
Nemertes Research, based in a suburb of Chicago, has predicted that over the next three to five years, Internet users in North America could experience “brownouts” unless telecommunications operators significantly step up their infrastructure investments.
“There are a lot of megabytes sitting in a lot of places that are underutilized,” Mr. Touré said. “It would be good to have a better knowledge of this.”
Mr. Touré said he had discussed this idea recently with telecommunications companies at an annual meeting organized by Intelsat, which operates communications satellites for use by media and telecommunications companies and governments.
At these gatherings, network operators already trade capacity: for instance, a European operator might agree to help with an anticipated spike in traffic to China or India. But for now, this happens without the structure of an exchange.
It was not clear whether network operators would want to participate in such a system. “It’s a little bit preliminary to talk about something like this at this point,” said Nicholas Mitsis, a spokesman for Intelsat.
Analysts said some telecommunications carriers might be reluctant to take part for fear of revealing sensitive information to competitors. Some might prefer to continue operating the way they do now, trading capacity as needed, usually with one counterparty, rather than making details about their networks available to all.
“The more granular they try to make this, the more difficult it would be to do it,” said John Delaney, an analyst at IDC, a research firm.
Mr. Touré said operators’ identities would be withheld to help prevent such problems.
If telecommunications providers can be persuaded, Mr. Delaney said, the database could play a useful role, helping network operators avoid the boom-bust investment cycles that have bedeviled them in the past. One of these contributed to the demise of Enron’s trading system, which suffered from a collapse in demand for trading after a multiyear investment spree by telecommunications companies left billions of dollars worth of fiber-optic networks unused.
“There is a mutual interest in getting capex to follow rather than lead demand,” Mr. Delaney said, referring to capital expenditures by operators.
The International Telecommunication Union, with the help of two software companies, Microsoft and IDV Solutions, has already created a more limited database called Global View, which tracks the spread of information and communications technologies in Africa, showing how different regions stack up in terms of mobile network coverage, broadband access and other communications benchmarks.
The telecommunications union wants to expand Global View to other continents, including Asia, Mr. Touré said. With better access to information, he said, companies will be more likely to invest in regions like Africa, where growth in mobile phone penetration has been rapid but where access to other communications technologies remains patchy.
“We’re making sure the industry is aware of the opportunities,” Mr. Touré said.
Global View could serve as a model for more ambitious plans, like the live database, he said.
“The world will benefit in knowing what traffic is going where and when,” he said. “The capacity problems are like the global food problem. It’s not because of a lack of food; it’s a lack of distribution of food.” - lostsymphonies1, on 06/30/2008, -1/+8I don't have to log in and I also don't have an account on nytimes.com
- spen949, on 06/30/2008, -2/+9Isn't this what the Enron people eventually got busted for? I seem to remember one of the guys selling stock on KB's sent around the internets.
- inactive, on 06/30/2008, -0/+6user: nowaywillireg
pass: stupidsite - SilverBlade2k, on 06/30/2008, -0/+6oh, ***** no. The moment this happens is the moment that the internet shuts down. Sorry, this is not just a horrible idea, but a ***** idea. Just like oil trading, this could also be manipulated by people from the RIAA and MPAA.
- ausfahrt, on 06/30/2008, -0/+4Interesting ... i had a feeling someone would say that. I did double and triple check so I'm not sure what is up here. Do you think it's cause I'm in Canada? Any Canadians experiencing the same thing?
- Hiji, on 06/30/2008, -3/+7Anything to keep the porn streaming and pirated downloads humming.
- TheOther1, on 06/30/2008, -0/+4http://www.bugmenot.com/view/nytimes.com
- etoiles, on 06/30/2008, -0/+4actually Enron DID work on this...
- jsully, on 06/30/2008, -0/+3Title should be "Guy who has no idea how internet works suggests new idea on how to run it."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peering - orenshk, on 06/30/2008, -0/+2I'm in Canada and I had no problems reading it...
- IdanH14, on 06/30/2008, -0/+2We forgive you. :)
- daaaveg, on 07/01/2008, -0/+2ENRON didn't get busted for trading internet bandwidth. They got busted for using little known accounting procedures that allowed them to post profits when deals were closed, not when they actually earned the revenue. This allowed them to keep posting big profits when they signed a deal even if they never made a single dime on the deal. Enron deliberately posted big profits month after month which would artificially inflate their stock prices.
Enron was also responsible for the California blackouts around 2000. they created a market for energy and deliberately took energy out of california to the point when there were rolling blackouts. the price of energy increased and then they would bring it back in california and sell the energy at inflated prices.
watch "Enron: The smartest guys in the room" on google videos, it explains the whole scandal. - inactive, on 06/30/2008, -0/+2Keep the UN FARRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR away from the Internet. They seek nothing less than to control it and milk us for $$$.
- SSCrow, on 07/01/2008, -0/+2Dear Various Corporations and ISPs,
Please leave the Internet ***** alone. I am satisfied, Please take half your profits and invest in better architecture. - catbeller, on 07/02/2008, -0/+2All they would need to do to raise prices is to... drag their feet building infrastructure. Control the spigot, control the market price. Moneymoneymoney! Children, don't let them turn electrons and photons into a "limited" commodity. They will bury you. Arrhh... do Americans understand anything anymore? Incapable of learning what's happening in front of their faces? Ideologically so nuts that they mug themselves, over and over again?
- Nismobeach, on 06/30/2008, -0/+2“That is my dream, ” said Hamadoun Touré, secretary general of the International Telecommunication Union, a United Nations agency based in Geneva that sets international communications standards.
^The UN is none of those things that you mentioned. - nydwarf, on 07/01/2008, -0/+2Enron did have a idea similar to this start ringing the alarm bells and get your ***** detectors running.
- jjason1985, on 07/01/2008, -0/+2My thoughts exactly. This sounds like it will allow for major speculation. Can you think of anything else that is insanely expensive due to speculation??
....side note; the physical oil market is about 1/3 the size of the electronic oil market (where oil only exists digitally). That blows my friggin mind! - shig, on 07/01/2008, -0/+2I have a dream that one day, your agency and the organization you represent, will vanish from the face of the planet.
- inactive, on 07/01/2008, -0/+1It's still win if I call second and get second.
- Kristijan12, on 07/01/2008, -0/+1Second is a looser to first!
- Infidelcastr0, on 06/30/2008, -2/+3Awesome. Privitization/Deregulation/Free Marketeering always brings prices down! Always! Ya!
- IdanH14, on 06/30/2008, -0/+1That's a good suggestion! I already imagine the Porn Market Exchange Agency being built up from scratch by Hugh Hefner, and how he and the big P*MPs getting even more wealthier than they are, while the poor ladies with no money or life they hire and pay little to nothing will get even more miserable. In short, marvelous suggestion.
- HappyScrappy, on 06/30/2008, -0/+1If you think this is a good idea I have a pile of dark fiber in Brooklyn I'd like to sell you.
- dimes, on 07/01/2008, -0/+1Uh, yeah, that already exists. Its called Peering, and its how most of the data on the intar webs traverses from one place to another.
Not sure it would work with traditional voice.....though voip would be included in the above.....and so is cellular data since its just packets too once it leaves the air and hits the fiber.
How about someone comes up with an original idea.
dimes - dafragsta, on 07/01/2008, -0/+1This is a terrible ***** idea.
- ZombyWoof78, on 06/30/2008, -1/+2Why not trade porn on the exchange
- 13373h4X0r, on 12/31/2008, -0/+1The current economic crisis was caused by bankers and investors, but everyone in America is paying the price for the damage. I think the idea of trading ANYTHING without the intention of directly using the stuff being exhanged -- i.e., trading as a middle man, merely to play a money game -- does little to benefit society. Many companies have little need to be publicly traded after they reach the point of being able to sustain themselves through income -- and, at that point, being traded becomes a liability, exposing the company to the whims of investors who are only in the game for money, and who are possibly without the domain knowledge to make decisions that benefit the company in the long term.
So, I worry about creating a similar trading market merely to convert traffic of anything in to another economic game for some elite financial gamers. That's what Internet traffic will become if it is somehow exposed to the masses in the form of "stocks" or "futures", etc. It will just invite chaos and new kinds of bubbles, booms, busts, artificial scarcities ("Hey, let's just turn off the Internet to Northern California during peak hours, and drive up the rates...or have rolling Internet outages..."), etc.
Speculating financially on a new idea -- investing money with the hope that something new emerges, while taking a risk that it will fail -- is a decision to support something constructive, to possibly add value to the world. But the way people are dealing with money on Wall Street, etc, is insane. If a "financial instrument" or whatever can't be readily explained, or if its value to society cannot be readily explained, then I think it's quite possible that such things work to the detriment of society, and should be outlawed. Sure, supercolliders and stem cell research can't be readily explained in ways that the common person can really understand, but at least a plausible argument can be made to almost anyone that such basic research produces new information, and increased understanding of physics or medicine has led some things we like about technology and health care. Meanwhile, "derivative stocks" and other wacky funds, loan structures, accounts, bonds, etc, just seem like inventions to create new games for investors to play. Some investors even make investment decisions based strictly on a stream of numbers, without any consideration for what those numbers mean in real life. The market is a massively-multiplayer video game, with everyone trying to find a way to exploit the current rules, and the ignorance of n00bs, to win the lottery. Really, does anyone invest in anything without a gambling mentality these days? And why should anyone expect that putting their money somewhere other than in a vault will "earn" them more money? What a racket! Again, I think true investors, who want to bring something new in to the world, at risk of failing, should be rewarded for their faith in the future of an idea when few others are willing to believe, but beyond that scenario, I think investments are morally equivalent to legalized and sanctioned gambling. Because so many big institutions are involved in this game, we are all affected in real life by the crises in the virtual reality game. - saggygrandma, on 07/01/2008, -0/+1Yay now we can have a 60% speculation on our internet bandwidth costs too.....
- mgnyc11, on 06/30/2008, -1/+1Yes, Enron and Blockbuster teamed up to create an Exchange to trade internet bandwidth. But Enron just made the announcement since back then if you said you were going to create a web site your stock went up 20%. It was a ploy to boost the stock price without any idea on how or when they would do this.
Frankly, its a dumb idea IMO. - inactive, on 07/01/2008, -1/+1Best to buy an infrared Flir that emergency vehicles use. Notice that round sensor nect to the light? thats the reciever. You can find these on Ebay or electronic specialty stores. You may never get a red light again. Just don't get caust with one
- HappyScrappy, on 06/30/2008, -1/+1You're kidding me. This is Enron all over again. What is up with these people?
- Nismobeach, on 06/30/2008, -2/+2Yet another example illustrating why the UN is such a farce. This is up there with them trying to tell America to allow the UN to run the Internet, WHEN AMERICA HELPED CREATE THE ***** THING.
These control freaks need to piss off. - zstevens, on 07/01/2008, -0/+0Watch it again - history repeats itself....Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room
- ausfahrt, on 06/30/2008, -12/+10Are you kidding me? Login to read the article. Bury this thing into oblivion please.
- inactive, on 06/30/2008, -8/+3second
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