I’ve been trying to understand why it has been so difficult for me to explain “best efforts” connectivity. I assumed that we had already transcended the network-of-networks framing but I was wrong. One telling conversation (that I think I’ve cited in the past) was in Rio at an event Luca hosted. One of the remote attendees talked about sharing a single phone line. Nicalas and I tried to explain the idea of using Internet-like protocols to share the wire even if it’s not connected to the rest of the world. I have lots of other examples but it’s a difficult concept.
Given this my next two columns try to explain this better.
https://rmf.vc/IEEEBeyondInternet tries to explain that the origins of the Internet are in psychology and not in network engineering. (Officially it’s the September column – the IEEE goes at the speed of hardware not software innovation)
In https://rmf.vc/UnderstandingInternetVsTelecom (https://rmf.vc/UIT) I dive deeper into the basic concepts. That’s still an early draft so I’d appreciate input and questions. I plan to follow up with another essay on the power of a Public Packet Infrastructure which is a concept DC3 can build on rather than extending the telecom model.
Bob Frankston