[...] And it's not right that telecoms operators should have to take all the precautions and shoulder all the burden. When other over-the-top internet companies do not. That isn't fair competition and it is jeopardising our security.
This is an irrelevant point. Telecoms operators is an archaic term that needs to be replaced by a more generic network operator concept, but the issues are not in the long term related to the operator - user interface, but to the way the networked society is architected. Sure, that ends up in administratively defined business units/companies/organizations, and the definitions of their interface border to the rest of the world is perhaps not always an easy task to determine, and sometimes a battle for power and control of network resources. Distribution System Operators of various kinds (telecoms, energy etc) are trying to control turf that belongs to the transport network operator, and vice versa, for business reasons, for value chain clout reasons, for reasons of technical gaps, cost avoidance reasons, or similar. Hidden agendas are fabricated and sold, rule makers make rules, and suddenly we are off to the races where the crap game is the same, the security exposures likewise, but power has shifted, or maybe just re-enforced. My point is that when I suggest that we need to step back into the analog world for a vantage point that permits Architectural change, then you need to be willing to also re-consider the beasts of your own creation (European Telcos as emerged after liberalization rounds and technology process), and open for industrial transformation that not only serves the security, but also the incentives to build infrastructure across the EU territories and not only where incumbents (widely defined) see fit to build. We are relatively stuck on fiber roll-outs and mobile broadband by relying on industrial structures that made sense 15 or more years ago (or even less, while not suitable for building what we need for 2020). Once you look at the industry Architecture from the perspective of where we come from, where that brought us, and where we want to go, only courage to make a larger revision and an industry plan can set us free from the economics, the security risks, and the social context that limits us when we just go on, leaving points of leverage of the Evil Empire in place.
Trond Johannessen, 12/11/2013 12:21
