Environmental Aspects of Access: Lessons to be Learned from the Industrial Age

By Peter F. Harter

During the Industrial Age the natural environment was used to make products, a process that created jobs, economic growth, societal expansion, funding for further technological innovation, and resources for philanthropy. Negative results of such activity demanded the attention of just about every citizen in this country and of many people around the world -- from leaching land fills, to toxic waste dumps, to air pollution, to outmoded job skills and related illiteracy for jobs in new industries. Back home in Ohio, where my company, the National Public Telecomputing Network (NPTN) is based, the Cuyahoga River flows through downtown Cleveland. In the late 1970s the river was so polluted with industrial waste that it flowed on fire day and night. Industry looked to the Cuyahoga River as a resource that could be used by all along its shores for the dumping of waste. The water kept on flowing and flowing and the waste was carried away. However, the waste really stayed right there and caused such pollution that folks had to stop, fix the problem, and change their behavior.

Similarly, as more and more people use the Internet for data intensive transactions like the Web, ftp, and go beyond mere e-mail, and as more school kids start to use the Net via state wide programs, we will see in the next year or two, a rapid increase of heavy users of the Net. However, it is unknown if the infrastructure is ready to handle such a load. Just as factory owners dumped waste into the Cuyahoga without realizing or forecasting the consequences and did so because they generated products people wanted, and provided jobs, and supported the local economy by operating their business along the river, many folks today -- from school districts to commercial online services -- are dumping users onto the Net, giving them access to this wonderful medium that we are only beginning to explore, enabling them to develop new literacy skills that should spill over into better job skills and social relations and participation in government.

Many historians have said that the industrial age began in Ohio. Some historians in the future may conclude that part of the information age started in Ohio with such organizations as Mead Data Central (otherwise known as Lexis/Nexis), CompuServe, Online Computer Library Center (OCLC), OARNet, Battelle Memorial Institute, Chemical Abstracts, and NPTN and the first Free-Net, the Cleveland Free-Net. However, what some people are seeing in Ohio may be happening elsewhere. In Ohio, hundreds of thousands of K-12 students will be accessing the Internet during the next few years. My question to Internet service providers and to other Internet users is will there be enough bandwidth to carry the load? As more and more individuals gain access to the Net, what contemplation has their been for consumption of what is a finite resource?

More access is absolutely necessary. If more access is not created, new users will be stifled and won't come online; demand for information products and services will needlessly be stunted. However, if people attempt to log on and can't get on, or if they are on but the flow is so slow, will people be turned off? Will the wonders of this technology be dulled to the point of uselessness? Is such new access putting the electronic environment that is the Net at risk?

Although the Cuyahoga is now clean, the history of the Industrial Age as reflected by the Cuyahoga provides some lessons to be learned about access to the Internet and the results of such use. If we can look to our history, perhaps we will be better prepared to deal with defining and solving our problems regarding access to the Internet. Also, solutions to the problems presented by the issues of access must include regular and substantive collaboration and planning between users and service providers. Individual system administrators can do their part by incorporating sound access principles into their acceptable use policies (AUPs) and or terms of service agreements and thus handle their own local load issues by contract. How various AUPs mesh with regard to access will depend on collaboration and cooperation between systems. Some networks may filter out packets from nonmember network systems so as to cut down on load; others will try to remain as open as they can given the cost of an Internet connection. However, cost of handling load, changes in Net culture, and other factors, will impact the amount of productive cooperation and collaboration.

AUPs administrating local load may be a solution to the environmental problems of overwhelming the limited capacity of the Net. Although some say there is no shortage of bandwidth, it is too early to reach that conclusion when the Net is in such a state of flux as it is being privatized and use is growing rapidly. If local sysops do not take it upon themselves to become active on this issue and take the initiative to collaborate, it is possible that state and or federal regulation would come into play (e.g., a speed limit of 55 mph in the name of gasoline conservation). Terrestrial laws mandating how Net bandwidth is used and how throughput is managed reminds one of other successful and all too familiar regulatory regimes that save us from ourselves. How can self-regulation and collaboration prevent the occasion for legislation providing for a Superfund for the Internet?

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Last Modified: May 26, 1995

Page Author: Peter F. Harter
Technical Support: John M. Kurilec (jmk@ofcn.org)