Senator Cruz on Innovation

In

https://www.texastribune.org/2014/11/14/cruz-explains-his-op...

we have a video clip of Texas Senator Ted Cruz discussing the important issue of Internet network neutrality.

Since the issue is important and, thus, we need for Senators to be well informed, here I respond to the part of the Senator's statement having to do with innovation by monopolies.

Here I'm discussing just innovation by monopolies and am not discussing network neutrality more generally. And here I concentrate on the Senator's remarks about innovation by the regulated monopoly AT&T.

Starting at about 00:55 of the video clip, we have:

"If you look national, when you think of regulated monopoly, regulated public utility, what are the adjectives that come to mind? They are not bold, innovative, fair. Let's give a simple contrast. The Telecommunications Act of 1934 was adopted to regulate these [he picks up a black, dial telephone desk set]. That's what it existed for, to put regulations in place. And what happened? It froze everything in place. You are right, it did have the major innovation of Touch Tone. [audience laughs] This [puts his hand on the black dial telephone] is regulated by Title 2. This [Holds up a smartphone] is not. Your smartphone, the Internet, the apps, all of this [holding up the cell phone] is outside of Title 2. The innovation is happening without having to go to government regulators and say "Mother, may I?". ...."

Okay, let's look at the part that, since the 1934 Title 2 regulations, AT&T, a regulated monopoly, for the US voice phone system "froze everything in place".

Well, it turns out that even after Title 2 of 1934, AT&T saw some problems and started to attack them:

Problem: Improving on vacuum tubes.

AT&T clearly saw that for the electronic signal amplification they needed for a good US long distance voice network, vacuum tubes were a bummer. The tubes were physically large, expensive, delicate, and unreliable. With the hot filaments, the tubes wasted a lot of electrical energy, put out a lot of heat, and generated a lot of noise in the signal.

Yes, could use the tubes as a rectifier, but there AT&T knew that it was possible to do much better with a selenium rectifier -- solid state, no filament, small, rugged, etc.

Well, might it be also be possible to have a good solid state electronic amplifier?

So AT&T Bell Labs started a project to develop such a device.

WWII was an interruption, but right after the war progress was rapid, and as in

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transistor

in 1947 at AT&T Bell Labs John Bardeen, Walter Brattain, and William Shockley demonstrated the transistor. Right away AT&T declined to patent the invention and, instead, gave it to the world for free.

The transistor was one of the most important steps up in all of civilization and the ascent of man and definitely qualified as "innovation", innovation of a grand kind, a top crown jewel of civilization.

Gee, might the level of innovation of the transistor compare with that of software for a smartphone app? Gads, the mind boggles!

Problem: How to transmit as much data as possible?

Even with transistors, it was still necessary to address how best to transmit data. E.g., what was the fastest way possible? So, C. Shannon did information theory and, in particular, found the Shannon limit. Yes, at AT&T Bell Labs, and more innovation.

Problem: For digital data, what to do about errors, say, a few bits flipped the wrong way.

So, R. Hamming invented error correcting coding, e.g., the Hamming codes based on finite field theory from abstract algebra.

Yes, from AT&T Bell Labs, and innovative.

Problem: How to transmit billions of bits per second over long distances?

Clearly something better than twisted pair copper wires was needed.

So, use optical fibers carrying amplitude modulated laser light of essentially just one wavelength. For the lasers, use Ga-Al-As hetero-junctions. Right, AT&T Bell Labs, and just magnificent innovation.

Problem: How to write software.

AT&T Bell Labs wanted some software so invented the computer operating system Unix. Since AT&T was a regulated monopoly, they couldn't sell Unix, so essentially they gave it away. Then there were later versions, BSD and Linux. For programming a language, they invented C. For an object-oriented programming language, they invented C++, initially a pre-processor to C. So, in software, from AT&T Bell Labs we got Unix, C, and C++, and these definitely qualify as innovation.

Problem: How to build a flexible, reliable digital communications network?

The DoD Advanced Project Research Agency (ARPA) addressed the problem and developed TCP/IP and internets. NSF helped the work go live, and now we have the Internet.

AT&T Bell Labs also attacked this problem and invented asynchronous transfer mode (ATM). ATM worked well for conversational voice and video while at least initially TCP/IP did not. Early on, ATM links were important in the Internet, but apparently in time IP won. Then, sure, for some of the core of the Internet, the simpler, faster border gateway protocol (BGP) won.

The Internet would be nowhere without the AT&T Bell Labs innovations of the transistor, optical fibers, solid state lasers, and error correcting coding. Shannon's work and ATM were also helpful. And Unix, C, and C++ remain pillars of the Internet and its applications.

Was the Internet primarily from the start-up entrepreneurs Cruz seems to admire? No: The Internet was primarily from AT&T Bell Labs and ARPA.

The idea that monopolies and big government don't innovate stands contradicted.

The regulated monopoly that did the black, dial desk phone also was by far the single, most important contributor of crucial innovation of the Internet.

Sorry, Senator Cruz: Sometimes monopolies do innovate. With high irony, the innovation you so admire, the Internet, was heavily from just the regulated monopoly you said "froze everything in place". And for much of the rest of the innovation for the Internet, that was not from entrepreneurs, either, but from one of the biggest government agencies of all, the US DoD and its ARPA.

Of course Senator Cruz is fully correct about the importance of the Internet and its crucial innovation. And he is correct that sometimes big government makes a big mess. And, of course, in just what we do about network neutrality we should be very careful.

Still, the lion's share of the crucial innovation for the Internet came from just the regulated monopoly, AT&T, that Senator Cruz claimed "froze everything in place".

Senator, that was a super, fat softball pitch you threw, and it was even embarrassingly easy to knock it into orbit: We're talking at least one Nobel Prize and top, crown jewels of civilization, Senator! The transistor! Optical fibers and solid state lasers! Error corrective coding! Don't look for better.

Senator, these are very important subjects, and we very much need to have the record set straight, but, please, it's no fun to totally humiliate you this way. We only have 100 Senators, and we need each of you to be fully well informed.

Senator, you have now had your introductory lecture in "The History of Innovation 101". Hope you enjoyed it and, for the sake of all of us, learned something valuable. Now, let's be careful on innovation, the Internet, and network neutrality.