Sean Doran wrote:
Ohta-san:
| > No, not "or whatever" but "AND whatever".
|
| Do you mean "plug THEM in to your phone line and whatever"?
Yes, that is certainly one possibility. I imagine the "inside"
interface would be some easy-to-wire LAN interface, enabling THEM
to communicate using whatever protocol/address seems appropriate inside.
I wonder how to decide the trade-off between the additional hardware
complexity of a multi-outside-port box and the additional software
involved in sharing state across several single-outside-port boxes.
Given the propensity of different hardware interfaces to spring up for
each new service, I'd argue having multiple boxes interacting, while
more complex, is more realistic.
Example: today I can get a DSL modem or router, and I can get a cable
modem. But the technologies of those interfaces seems to keep changing.
To build one device with multiple interfaces would require (due to the
changing technologies) a place to plug in interface modules. This raises
the cost of manufacture dramatically over building a box with a fixed
set of ports, so it's unrealistic to expect the market will favor it.
Sure, it's a harder problem. A good challenge for engineers to solve.
--
-----------------------------------------------------------------
Daniel Senie dts(_at_)senie(_dot_)com
Amaranth Networks Inc. http://www.amaranth.com