Barry Shein <bzs(_at_)world(_dot_)std(_dot_)com> wrote:
But one difference was that there was real, measurable money involved.
Which meant that the maintainers of the phone system had an
incentive to change the system.
Another is that the phone system is somewhat more mature than the
internet.
The "maturation" of the phone system involved separating control &
data paths. Captain Crunch whistles can be blown into a handset until
your face turns red, and nothing will happen.
It's difficult to change the Internet now, to separate control &
data paths. As if the billions of dollars required isn't enough, the
underlying philosophy of "end-to-end" communication means that any
such attempt will be strongly opposed.
Think of the Internet as a phone system where almost anyone can hook
up a switch, where blue boxes come standard with most payphones, and
where most payphones have a button labelled "press here to dial
without inserting a quarter". No one should be surprised that the
resulting system is a mess of abuse and fraud.
Given the opportunity the public would probably "vote" for free
broadband cable etc. Why not?!
It's called "free bread and circuses". It goes back to the Roman
days.
In contrast, the phone systems could be upgraded not only for the
reasons stated above, but also because they were owned by the phone
company, there were relatively few switches, and the switch<->payphone
protocol didn't have to be changed when the switches were upgraded.
Alan DeKok.
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