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Invisible <voi### [at] dev null> wrote:
> Warp wrote:
> > You are confusing standards with monopolies.
> Right. My point was that if companies are just left to their own
> devices, they will all invent and deploy incompatible technologies.
Still has nothing to do with monopolies, and everything to do with
standards.
Sometimes standards are imposed by the government in order to make
everything work more smoothly. Sometimes adhering to an existing standard
(either an official one or a de-facto one) is simply economically more
viable than breaking it.
Still nothing to with monopolies.
--
- Warp
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>> Yep. In the good old days, the GPO ran the postal system *and* the
>> telephone system. Indeed, the GPO manufactured a wide range of
>> electrical and electronic components. A bit like Radio Shack, 1920s
>> style.
>>
>> Why, the Colossus computer was built using only off-the-shelf parts from
>> the GPO parts catalogue!
>
> Wow, if only the USPS followed that model .... err, no .. I take that back.
Heh. This is why they were able to rebuild Colossus - the good old GPO
keeps records on their records. ;-) Beaurocracy? It's a government
institution! ;-)
But yes... fortunately the GPO is no more.
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On 5/13/2010 1:50 AM, Stephen wrote:
>
> Sir Arthur would agree. ;-)
>
Ahhhuuuuughhhhhhhhhh... :/
--
~Mike
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andrel wrote:
> Who else?
Heh. Here it was a private company until it got big enough to make it worth
regulating. It was a regulated monopoly, but not *owned* by the state. The
federal government just told it how much profit it had to make and the
conditions under which it had to accept customers.
I guess when you aren't the first doing the technology, you can look and say
"Gee, that's going to be very popular, we better make that part of the
government" or something.
--
Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
Ada - the programming language trying to avoid
you literally shooting yourself in the foot.
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On 13/05/2010 3:37 PM, Mike Raiford wrote:
> On 5/13/2010 1:50 AM, Stephen wrote:
>
>>
>> Sir Arthur would agree. ;-)
>>
>
> Ahhhuuuuughhhhhhhhhh... :/
>
LOL
--
Best Regards,
Stephen
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Invisible wrote:
> I would have thought that for something like communications, or indeed
> any type of network, a monopoly is almost a design requirement.
Anything real-time, yes. That doesn't mean it has to be owned by the
government.
> If you had three different telephone companies, they'd invent three
> types of telephone, with three incompatible numbering plans, and three
> incompatible sorts of cabling with incompatible signalling protocols.
> They'd then go out and lay three sets of cabling, build three sets of
> telephone exchanges, and when everything was finished you'd *still* only
> be able to call people who are with the same provider as you.
You're assuming that there even *was* dialing and numbering plans and such.
The phone network here was a monopoly for technical reasons long before
anyone invented a dial phone.
> Similar arguments go for things like power distribution, or rail
> networks.
Rail networks aren't a monopoly. They didn't even have compatible rails for
a long time, since it wasn't really that much of a problem to switch cars.
--
Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
Ada - the programming language trying to avoid
you literally shooting yourself in the foot.
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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.
Wow, good thing the internet uses ethernet everywhere, and we never had
these dial-up modems, ADSL, or cable modems to deal with.
> 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.
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.
> 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?
We have that here. Well, at least two. There's an "address" for postal
mail, and a "legal description" for ownership, taxes, etc. The postal
address is technically only for mail delivery. The post office assigns it,
if they don't like the one the builder provided. (I.e., the post office
decides what the house numbers are, and they may rename the streets as
well.) The legal description applies before any house is built that you
could deliver mail to, and applies to things that have either lots of
addresses or no addresses. It refers to a surveying map on file at the county.
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?
> 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.
> Also, networks usually require some kind of "capacity planning"
> activity. If you let independent parties all do their own thing, you'll
> end up with duplicated effort.
Yes. But that doesn't matter as much.
> All of this is presumably why almost all services are monopolies.
Maybe in your country. Our services fight like cats and dogs to avoid
letting the government make monopolies.
> (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.
--
Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
Ada - the programming language trying to avoid
you literally shooting yourself in the foot.
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Jim Henderson wrote:
> On Wed, 12 May 2010 20:49:45 -0300, Nicolas Alvarez wrote:
>> But I think it may be culture-speecific, and even "oh but I'm talking
>> only of the western world" is too broad. Jim, have *you* heard of
>> Favaloro? :)
>
> Not really, but then again, I don't keep up on current events when it
> comes to surgeons (and I personally don't watch a lot of news myself).
"In 1967, René Favaloro became the first surgeon to perform a coronary
bypass surgery on a patient suffering from Coronary artery disease. This
procedure later developed into the most important technology in coronary
surgery."
How is that a "current" event?
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On Thu, 13 May 2010 14:26:02 -0300, Nicolas Alvarez wrote:
> Jim Henderson wrote:
>> On Wed, 12 May 2010 20:49:45 -0300, Nicolas Alvarez wrote:
>>> But I think it may be culture-speecific, and even "oh but I'm talking
>>> only of the western world" is too broad. Jim, have *you* heard of
>>> Favaloro? :)
>>
>> Not really, but then again, I don't keep up on current events when it
>> comes to surgeons (and I personally don't watch a lot of news myself).
>
> "In 1967, René Favaloro became the first surgeon to perform a coronary
> bypass surgery on a patient suffering from Coronary artery disease. This
> procedure later developed into the most important technology in coronary
> surgery."
>
> How is that a "current" event?
Relatively current, then. I did note that he'd passed away in the 80's.
My point, though, was that I don't keep up with medical science, so even
though my dad had bypass surgery years ago, I never thought about where
it came from.
Jim
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Nicolas Alvarez wrote:
> How is that a "current" event?
How about Dr Jarvik.
--
Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
Ada - the programming language trying to avoid
you literally shooting yourself in the foot.
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