Jonathan: Ellijah is correct about this being a telecom term, and that is now being co-opted. I am writing my dissertation in part on convergence and I found that the telecom break up is critical to convergence of much of modern communications because it opened up the gateway for AT&T's patents to be used for both their intended and non-intended purposes and created innovation competition (Bagdikian, 2005;Jenkins, 2006;Lessig, 2004) that resulted in the commercialization of the Internet, cable de-regulation (Cable Act of 1984 occurred that same year), the Sony-Betmax case and eventually the Telecomm Act of 1996 and the DMCA which was designed to protect the property of the newly merged companies (Time/Warner, Viacom etc) from digital technologies. The interesting thing is that most of this technology was developed during or immediately after WWII when the military,research universities and private industry created the partnership that created convergence, modern globalism, the Internet, space exploration and the computer age. -----Original Message----- From: air-l-bounces@listserv.aoir.org [mailto:air-l-bounces@listserv.aoir.org] On Behalf Of elw@stderr.org Sent: Friday, September 08, 2006 1:49 PM To: air-l@listserv.aoir.org Subject: Re: [Air-l] "last mile" query That's a telco industry term, not originally an academic term. The telephone network is very different between switching stations than it is between those switching stations and individual homes. Thus, the "last mile" terminology originated as a way of pointing out that the edge-of-network deployment issues were very different than those surrounding the core network - which is often made up of fiber, microwave links, et cetera. Things that you wouldn't expect to have run from the switching station to the curb in front of your house/apartment/etc. "last mile" has of course been co-opted and adopted by people who want to talk about cable, fiber to the curb, etc. But -- start with practice in the telecoms industry. [You might consider hunting around in some of the testimony from the Ma Bell monopoly case...] --elijah On Fri, 8 Sep 2006, Jonathan Sterne wrote:
Date: Fri, 08 Sep 2006 13:03:37 -0400 From: Jonathan Sterne <jonathan.sterne@mcgill.ca> Reply-To: air-l@listserv.aoir.org To: air-l@listserv.aoir.org Subject: [Air-l] "last mile" query
Hi All,
This is a request for bibliographic help.
I can find countless resources that USE the idea of the "last mile" to
talk about end user access issues in a wide range of contexts. But I am having a much harder time tracking down the origins of the term or its early development with respect to cable, the internet and other networked technologies.
Any suggestions would be much appreciated, including suggestions for "classic texts" in the development of the idea.
Thank you.
--Jonathan
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