The Digital Dilemma Intellectual Property in the Information Age (2000) / Chapter Skim
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Appendix C: Networks: How the Internet Works
Appendix C: Networks: How the Internet Works
Pages 263-270
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From page 263... ...
The facilities of the telephone network along the path are reserved for the duration of each specific call. An admissions control process checks to see if there are sufficient resources for an additional call at all points along the path between the call initiator and the recipient whenever a new call is attempted.
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From page 264... ...
Thus, network congestion causes all applications using the path to degrade roughly evenly.3 Another difference between the Internet and the telephone networks is in the way one service provider exchanges traffic with another. In the case of the telephone networks, the individual long distance providers do not connect to each other.
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From page 265... ...
Telephone networks include many computers that provide application support services to the users of the telephone network. This makes them "smart." These support computers are required because the user's access device, a telephone, is very simple and must rely on the network to provide all but the most basic functionality.
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From page 266... ...
To the user, Internet-based telephone services can be indistinguishable from those offered by a traditional telephone company, including being able to provide a "fast busy" signal if a new request would overload a network resource. However, a fast-busy-signal type of telephony service is only one of the options another service provider could offer a differently priced service where a call could still be placed in times of network congestion but the call would be of a lower quality.
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From page 267... ...
Individuals and corporations obtain Internet connectivity from ISPs. Thousands of ISPs exist in the United States, ranging in size from "mom and pop" providers of dialup service for a few dozen customers each to providers who offer services in all parts of the world and have hundreds of thousands or millions of dial-up and thousands of directly connected customers.
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From page 268... ...
Governmental support for Internet connectivity still exists in some parts of the world, including the United States where subsidies support public schools and libraries going "online." Now, virtually all the cost of the Internet in the United States is covered by the private sector, through the fees that users pay to Internet service providers or through advertising revenues that are used to support "free" online access.5 Many fee structures are in place throughout the Internet with each ISP deciding what types of pricing models they wish to support. Most ISPs charge large corporate Internet users on a traffic-based basis, the more traffic they exchange with the Internet, the higher the bill.
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From page 269... ...
This type of "class-based" quality of service technology will permit the Internet to support a wide array of new applications without having to deploy specific technology to support individual applications. This is a significant advantage to the Internet service providers and the applications developers, but it means that, even in the area of quality of service, there will be no easy way to tell what applications are being used by individual Internet users.
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From page 270... ...
The advent of constantly available high-speed connectivity will go a long way toward reducing and ultimatelv eliminating the technological barriers to the easy downloading of J {J {J J digital music and video files. This always-on capability will be well matched to the Internet-on-achip technology for which a number of companies are starting to put Internet Protocol software in integrated circuits.
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