Saturday, February 25, 2006

Breaking the end-to-end principle

We have talked about the end-to-end principle of network design and the idea that routers treat all packets the same. Now that a few telephone and cable companies control much of the ISP business in the US, they are seeking legislation that will allow them to program IP routers to examine packets. This would allow them to bill for specific services and give delivery priority to their content or that of those who pay a premium. Here is Vint Cerf's advice to congress on this bill. You can also listen to a brief roundtable discussion of this effort.

Lobbying against municipal networks

Telephone and cable companies have lobbied for State legislation to outlaw municipal networks for several years. They are also doing so at the federal level. Russell Shaw shows AT&T (SBC) contributions to the sponsors of the legislation. You can also listen to a short roundtable discussion of this lobbying effort.

Saturday, February 18, 2006

Considerations for Pasadena city wireless network

We have talked about municipal networks, and Pasadena, California recently received bids for a citywide WiFi network. The bidders raised many questions while working on their proposals. Note that they are generally not concerned with technology, but with mechanical mounting of the radios, power supply, and other "nuts and bolts" issues. That is typical.

Sunday, February 05, 2006

AOL goes P2P for video

AOL will use peer to peer technology to deliver video over the Internet. Would you give AOL permission to store files on your hard drive in return for the ability to download?

A lot of people think of AOL as a network for beginners, but do not forget that they are part of Time Warner. AOL may become an Internet video powerhouse.

Vint Cerf talk

Vint Cerf gave a talk entitled The Internet Today and Tomorrow at Stanford University. He covers some of the topics we will in our Network Applications and TCP/IP sections. Cerf was co-inventor along with Bob Kahn of TCP/IP.

Interview of Bob Kahn

I have posted an excerpt from a NerdTV interview of networking pioneer and TCP/IP co-inventor Bob Kahn. At the start of the excerpt he is talking about the ARPANet. The ARPANet was a single network, like a large LAN. The next step was to inter-connect multiple networks, to create an inter-network. Kahn and his colleague Vint Cerf invented TCP/IP to do that. The initial goal of TCP (later split into TCP and IP) was to connect the ARPANet with two other networks each of which had different packet sizes, data rates and communication protocols. TCP/IP has ended up connecting millions of dissimilar networks (3 minutes 33 seconds).

Saturday, February 04, 2006

Recommended paint program

This week's Creative Cow podcast recommended a paint program called ArtRage. There is a free version and a full edition for $19.95. I have not tried it out. If you do, let us know what you think of it or show us some of your work using it.