VIRTUAL INFRASTRUCTURE - PUTTING INFORMATION INFRASTRUCTURE ON THE TECHNOLOGY CURVE

The present debate concerning the National Information Infrastructure (NII) has focused primarily on competition. Although competition will be an important component of the NII, and one which we welcome, we arg ue that it is inappropriate to frame the debate entirely in terms of c ompetition. Competition can be seen as a consequence of a fundamental development driving innovation within the information industries; name ly, the adoption of the digital paradigm. However, digitization offers opportunities for innovation that go beyond competition. We hypothesi ze that the second wave of the digital revolution will be the virtuali zation of the infrastructure; that is, the adoption of a software pers pective on information and on the devices and channels with which it i s processed and distributed. In this paper, we offer a vision of what it would mean for the NII to be a Virtual Infrastructure (VI) that tak es full advantage of the digital paradigm. We present a taxonomy for d escribing alternative infrastructure scenarios and show how the key pr operties of digital information favor a competitive, generic, and deco upled (CGD) infrastructure. We explore several technical issues, inclu ding information appliances and software; the mosaic of overlapping di stribution networks; and the brokerage functions that match up supplie rs, distributors, and customers. In our treatment of the technical iss ues, we identify heterogeneity as a key challenge facing computer scie ntists and offer suggestions for areas of investigation that might pro ve fruitful. We conclude with a discussion of the policy implications of this work. We are particularly concerned with policies that foster innovation by reducing barriers to the insertion of new technology. To pics addressed include decoupling the regulation of information servic es from the regulation of distribution, dealing with monopolies and ve rtical integration, and the publication of interface specifications.