Darren New wrote:
> Invisible wrote:
>> Right. My point was that if companies are just left to their own 
>> devices, they will all invent and deploy incompatible technologies.
> 
> Not really. One network will be bigger, and others will make their stuff 
> compatible so they can connect to the network. Or you build interface 
> converters.

Or you have the network equivilent of "format wars" while the few 
biggest networks try to out-grow each other and win the game...

> Wow, good thing the internet uses ethernet everywhere, and we never had 
> these dial-up modems, ADSL, or cable modems to deal with.

Fortunately, somebody invented IP. Before that happened, it was crazy 
out there...

>> For something like washing machines, the fact that one machine is 
>> "incompatible" with another is largely irrelevant. For anything which 
>> could be described as a "network", compatibility is usually a Big Deal.
> 
> Which is exactly why the companies tend not to deploy incompatible 
> technologies, once a sufficiently good technology has proven itself.

Really? How would company X know that company Y is using a given technology?

> The main reason the telephone networks in the USA were monopolies is 
> they were analog, and you had to carefully design the routing so that 
> long distance calls didn't go thru so many switches that you lost all 
> quality.

Similar constraints probably apply to things like water or electricity 
distribution.

>> The other problem is assigned numbers. Can you imagine if there were 
>> three different postal services, each of which assigns completely 
>> different postcodes to the same addresses? 
> 
> FedEx and UPS and GPS driving directions and such all use the postal 
> address. Why wouldn't they? Why would UPS go to the trouble of making up 
> their own sets of addresses?

Yeah, because the postal address already existed in the first place. If 
the post office hadn't existed first...

>> Even if the format of a
>> postcode is standardised, you still need a single entity to assign them.
> 
> Because ethernet MAC addresses and worldwide telephone numbers are all 
> managed by the same entity.

?

>> (Still, I guess it's plausible that you could have a single entity in 
>> charge of *planning* a service, and have the service actually 
>> *performed* by several independant companies...)
> 
> Hey, welcome to Bellcore. Have a nice visit.

Um... OK?

-- 
http://blog.orphi.me.uk/
http://www.zazzle.com/MathematicalOrchid*

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