DISQUS

Chris · 2 years ago

Telephones almost always work. The Internet does not, it just usually works. From a technical standpoint, this is a big difference. If you wish to mix telephones with the Internet, you will need an Internet that almost always works. Why is this? Much traditional Internet traffic is TCP based and not latency sensitive whereas real time traffic such as two way voice or video is latency sensitive (and UDP).

Your neutrality vs. non-argument is abstract enough to gloss over the fact that two completely types of network are merging into what is known as next generation networks and a new cumulative requirement for the network will result.

eee_eff · 2 years ago

Telephones almost always work. The Internet does not, it just usually works. From a technical standpoint, this is a big difference. If you wish to mix telephones with the Internet, you will need an Internet that almost always works. Why is this? Much traditional Internet traffic is TCP based and not latency sensitive whereas real time traffic such as two way voice or video is latency sensitive (and UDP).

I don't agree with that analysis, because you are using the criteria of one network (the telephone system) to judge another network (the internet) which was in fact designed with different criteria.

So if I said my sailboat didn't work because it didn't drive like my car, that would be silly.

Chris · 2 years ago

enigma,

Thank you for reinforcing my point. Next generation networks are packetized networks in which both the traditional Internet (packets) and the traditional phone system (circuits) are merging into one single packetized network, with the cumulative requirements of performance that existed in both previous networks.

As far as your sailboat, the comparison would be: Sailboats float on the sea and cars drive on land, then we create a personal transportation device that can both float on sea and travel on land. Therefore the capabilities and requirements for the new personal transportation device are both for land and sea travel.

eee_eff · 2 years ago

As far as your sailboat, the comparison would be: Sailboats float on the sea and cars drive on land, then we create a personal transportation device that can both float on sea and travel on land.

It shold be obvious that we would end up with something that would neither be a good car or a good sailboat.

As someone who designs stuff for a living, I would call your attention to one of the most important steps in a design process: developing criteria. So the internet was designed with a certain criteria for latency, a criteria which it meets.

Chris · 2 years ago

Perhaps the sailboat and car comparison doesn't hold up well for personal transportation. I merely wanted to highlight the need to merge two sets of design criteria in the merging of two types of communication networks. The Internet Protocol world and the public switch telephone network world.

The assumption that the internet was designed with a certain criteria for latency which it meets disregards a basic design fact. Things change. The domain model developed in the past at some time will no longer apply. A new model with new criteria will come about. The traditional circuit based model for telephony (real time communication) is merging with the traditional packet based model for file transfer. Together there is a need for both file transfer and real time information on one network. Some groups call this model Next Generation Networks (see International Telecommunications Union), some groups call this Converged Networks.

This is the cumulative requirements (or criteria) I mentioned in my first post.