In the 1990’s, the Internet seemed to be an incredible distributed network capable of transforming the world by making it more open and free. To a great extent, it has done this. But after seeing the good progress we’ve made, we understandably want more of that openness and freedom.

Net Neutrality proponents want widely distributed access to a free (as in freedom) and open network.

Net Neutrality opponents want ISPs to have the freedom to run their network free from regulations.

What follows is a free and open proposal for a network protocol that guarantees these properties:

IsoGrid: A new globally-scalable network protocol with a mesh topology. Instead of being limited to traditional address-routed packets, the protocol uses source routing to set up bounded-latency isochronous streams avoiding the problem of congestive collapse. Once a stream is set up, the route is given a numeric name to support routing micro-packets (µPkt) both directions along the route. To support isochronous streams across the entire network, the framerate of every link is a power of 2 frequency relative to TCG time, this opens the door to many new scenarios that require precise relative timekeeping. Micro-transfers of Energy, which are made ‘by simple agreement’ between each neighbor along a route, are used to cover sending data across the network, avoiding the Tragedy of the Commons. Client endpoints are responsible for building up multi-path redundant link maps through the network, relying on the advertised 3D-Geohash locations of the nodes to track only a subset of nodes within a given area; providing scalability, redundancy, and wider distribution of power. The hash-based locating mechanism gives a convenient solution to distributed data storage. Contrasted with TCP/IP, the new protocol stack’s layering model provides additional options for streams, packets, safety, reliability, robustness, latency, and extensibility. Most importantly, the entire protocol was morally designed with its socioeconomic side-effects as a guide.

IsoGrid Protocol Specification v0.235

Discussion at Hacker News!