The internet is an interesting beast. even the definition eludes us. I'm sure If I took a survey asking people what they believe the internet to be the answers would be quite different.
Commercial interests have always guided the growth of the internet as we know it. However government and academic interests specifically the US started the internet as we know it today.
For different reasons, special interest groups do decide to 'go their own way'. A good example is for research again by academic institutions and the US military. internet2 as an example. Surprise surprise the US institutions are leading this. go on and read the master switch (timothy WU) and ruling the root (mueller) for some little background. We have to all agree for a network this size expecting zero disruption as we move along is silly. Like any organization, the internet as we know it will change. The current retail model works but the settlement model between different autonomous service providers is still crazy complex.
I suspect there are also other large isolated networks out there. banks could decide to do theirs, so could hospitals or countries. things change. thats life. We're lucky the iranians choose to work with protocols we know and understand. Nothing stops you or anyone else coming up with new ways of doing things. they could use iranCP (iran control protocol) in place of TCP, or come up with new security mechanisms outside standard standards. (anyone remember ipv9?)
There is a reason why some governments ban encryption technologies from being exported. and yes going to china for the technology is clever considering they probably handle the biggest/largest/powerful content inspection engines. Probably designed in the west. I guess what Im trying to say is ---I dont care what the iranians do. I care very much what the kenyan government, zuku , jtl and safaricom (my current service providers) are doing:-)
Government and security is a huge un-ignorable driver in this. So yes Iran can do whatever they want and call it anything (Irannet):-). They can wire the entire country and decide to only serve local content and call it the internet. The first to complain will obviously be those that use it for commercial interests since thats a huge chunk of consumers off the grid. and guys crying democratic rights and the right to choose. Again terms that tend to sound suspect to me depending on who is talking about them. I personally laud any government that at least has a stand on what they want with the internet.
jgitau
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**Gitau