NGN - clean slate or not ?

Attending meetings about Internet Governance, I keep on hearing how so many things will influence the architecture of the Internet. A lot of the heated discussions tackle the short term instead of the long term. Furthermore, some governments are under the impression that a "Next Generation Network", aka NGN, will be a Clean Slate approach to networking.

For the record, let me say here that these are pipe dreams.

Apart from increasing control of the next generation network by governments and multi-national corporations, I cannot see a single reason why a next generation network should be created out of a Clean Slate approach. The Internet might not be perfect, but its imperfections are being worked on. At the very least they are known!

Currently, there are thousands of engineers around the world who are working on ways to remedy the Internet's Achille's heels. The experience which has been acquired thus far by running an international network spanning the whole world, is more valuable than any theoretical study that will ever be conducted. The amount of "known knowns" and "known unknowns" is vastly superior to the amount of "known knowns" and "known unknowns" in a Clean Slate approach. In fact, I'll venture out to say that the danger, as we all know, is the amount of "unknown unknowns", which the Clean Slate approach is full of.

So what do we really know about the Clean Slate approach? Nothing. In fact, at the time of writing, I suspect that the people proposing the Clean Slate approach don't know either.

How will it perform? How reliable will it be? Will it be hacked? Will it be secure? Will it encourage innovation? Will it encourage democracy? Will it be embraced internationally?

Perhaps should we find answers to these questions before launching into huge development costs for a programme which might yield little more than few gigabytes of presentations and writings.